• 


FAMOUS 


HOUSES 


BY 

<PAUL  M.HOLLISTER 

Illustrated  by 

JAMES   TRESTON 

With  an  Introduction  by 

JULIAN  STREET 


DAVID  Me  KAY  COMPANY,  Publishers 
PHILADELPHIA,  MCMXXI 


Copyright,   1921,  by 
DAVID  MCKAY  COMPANY 


Illustrations  especially  engraved  and  printed  by  the  Beck  Engraving  Company,  Philadelphia 


TO 

MARION 


FOREWORD 

THERE  is  no  bibliography  in  this  book.  I  confess  freely 
to  a  snapping-up  of  ill-considered  trifles  where  I  found 
them.  Those  that  rang  true  are  here,  those  that  proved 
false  upon  closer  examination  are  not.  Some  were  gifts, 
some  purchases,  some  thefts — the  latter  are  now  shame 
lessly  confessed,  on  the  plea  that  as  a  citizen  I  have  the  right 
of  eminent  domain  to  the  story  of  my  country.  I  cannot  put 
the  volume  out  to  shift  for  itself  without  blanket  acknowl 
edgment  of  the  generosity  of  the  people  who  put  me  in  the 
way  of  finding  reliable  information.  Several  of  them  are  the 
owners  of  the  houses;  some  of  them  have  even  read  this 
manuscript. 

— Boston,  September,  1921. 


INTRODUCTION 

AS  I  read  in  Mr.  Hollister's  chapter  on  Mount  Vernon  of  Wash- 
XJL  ington's  long  absence  from  the  home  he  loved  and  of  the  eager 
ness  with  which  he  returned  to  it  after  the  tumultuous  years  of  the  Revo 
lutionary  War,  I  was  caught  by  the  fancy  that  lovers  of  books  have 
recently  gone  through  a  somewhat  parallel  experience.  Dragged  away 
by  the  Great  War  from  the  books  they  cared  for,  plunged  into  con 
tinual  war  reading,  they  now  find,  to  their  infinite  relief,  that  they  are 
getting  home  again — back  to  Mount  Vernon,  as  it  were.  And  it  seems 
to  me  the  change  could  not  better  be  exemplified  than  in  this  charm 
ing,  gentle  book  of  Famous  Colonial  Houses. 

While  we  were  fighting  to  preserve  the  heritage  and  the  traditions 
left  us  by  Washington,  Jefferson,  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  and  other  great 
figures  of  their  time,  whom  we  find  in  these  pages,  we  were  too  busily 
engaged  to  give  much  thought  to  the  origins  of  the  things  we  fought  to 
save.  Not  that  the  forefathers  of  the  nation  were  forgotten,  but  that 
historic  men  were,  in  that  time  of  stress,  overshadowed  by  historic 
principles  laid  down  by  them.  We  put  them  aside  tenderly,  as  books 
are  put  aside  when  the  sword  is  taken  up.  Yet  now  that  we  have 
vindicated  in  battle  the  freedom  that  they  gave  us,  we  find  them  more 
than  ever  with  us.  For  a  just  war  fought  through  to  victory  sheds 
glory  not  only  upon  the  men  who  fought  it  and  the  nation  for  which 
they  fought,  but  also  upon  the  nation's  ancient  heroes,  whose  stature 
is  increased  with  that  of  their  country.  Wherefore  this  book,  telling 
tales  of  old  houses  in  which  early  American  history  was  made,  and  of 


INTRODUCTION 


men  who  made  the  houses  and  the  history,  is  even  more  welcome  today 
than  it  would  have  been  before  the  Great  War. 

It  is  welcome,  too,  for  another  partially  extrinsic  reason. 

In  the  face  of  mutterings  of  anarchy — that  Russian  importation 
which  is  so  much  less  satisfactory  than  the  caviar — there  is  reassurance 
in  these  sturdy  calm  old  mansions  which  are  the  monuments  of  the 
sturdy  calm  old  patriots  who  raised  them — men  having  a  rare  sense 
of  proportion  which  they  exercised  not  only  in  building  their  houses 
but  in  building  the  nation  on  lines  equally  clean,  sound  and  beauti 
ful.  Fancy  a  shaggy  Bolshevik,  his  mouth  full  of  broken  English,  his 
head  full  of  sophistry,  and  his  heart  full  of  greed  for  the  possessions 
of  others,  being  led  up  Mount  Vernon,  Monticello  or  Doughoregan 
Manor!  Could  any  contrast  make  a  picture  more  grotesque?  Could 
there  be  conceived  a  background  more  serenely  sane,  more  perfectly 
American,  against  which  to  display  the  distortion  of  this  foreign  mad 
ness?  Every  stone  and  brick  and  timber  of  such  houses  preaches  a 
sermon  on  Americanism. 

It  is  a  sermon  not  only  for  aliens,  but  for  all  of  us.  We  should 
all  see  these  houses,  or  if  we  cannot  see  them,  we  should  know  them 
as  some  of  them  are  made  known  to  us  in  this  book.  Our  land  is 
a  better  land  for  having  them  within  its  borders,  and  we  will  be  better 
citizens  for  an  acquaintance  with  them. 

The  day  on  which  I  went  to  Monticello  was  beautiful,  yet,  save 
my  companion,  no  one  else  was  there.  I  wonder  how  many  of  the 
politicians  who,  with  the  vox  humana  stop  pulled  out,  acclaim  the  name 
of  Jefferson  as  founder  of  the  Democratic  Party,  have  made  the  short 
pilgrimage  from  Washington  to  Charlottesville  to  visit  the  house  he 
lived  in  and  the  grave  where  he  is  buried. 

In  curious  contrast  to  the  large  investment  of  the  nation  in  National 


INTRODUCTION 


Parks,  is  its  apparent  indifference  in  the  matter  of  the  homes  of  its  his 
toric  figures.  Not  one  of  the  houses  dealt  with  by  Mr.  Hollister  in 
this  book  is  the  property  of  the  nation.  Two  of  them  are,  to  be  sure, 
houses  which,  though  their  story  is  interesting,  are  not  involved  with 
national  history;  and  some  of  the  others  are  not  of  sufficient  impor 
tance,  from  the  purely  historical  point  of  view,  to  make  them  national 
monuments  of  the  first  order.  But  two  are,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  homes  of  early  presidents,  and  neither  of  these  is  owned  by  the 
nation.  For  all  practical  purposes  Mount  Vernon  is  as  free  to  the 
public  as  though  the  nation  did  own  it,  but  the  fact  remains  that  the 
title  to  it  is  vested  in  a  society;  while  as  for  Monticello,  it  is  owned  by 
a  private  individual,  not  a  descendant  of  Jefferson,  into  whose  hands 
it  came  by  inheritance  from  a  forebear  said  to  have  secured  it  in  a  not 
too  creditable  way.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  why  the  State  of 
Virginia  or  the  Nation  has  not  bought  the  place,  which,  I  am  told,  the 
owner  has  declared  his  willingness  to  part  with — at  a  price. 

The  census  of  the  twelve  houses  described  and  pictured  in  this 
book  is  worth  completing.  One,  Mount  Vernon,  is,  as  I  have  said, 
owned  by  an  organization  of  patriotic  women;  two  are  owned  by  their 
municipalities  and  are  cared  for  by  patriotic  organizations;  one  only  is 
the  home  of  a  lineal  descendant  and  namesake  of  the  builder — though 
three  others  belong  to  persons  having  in  their  veins  blood  of  the  first 
masters  of  their  houses.  And  one — a  most  interesting,  but  not  his 
toric  house — is  a  poor  battered  tenement.  Seven  of  the  houses  are 
situated  in  Northern  States,  one  in  a  Border  State,  and  four  are  in  the 
South.  The  builders  of  two  of  the  houses,  the  first  and  third  Presi 
dents  of  the  United  States,  are  buried  on  the  grounds  nearby,  and  in 
one  case  the  builder  is  buried  under  the  chancel  of  a  private  chapel,  a 
part  of  the  house  itself. 


INTRODUCTION 


These  historic  houses  may  well  be  regarded  as  taking  the  place 
with  us  of  the  crown  jewels  of  an  empire.  I  am  thankful  to  have  seen 
eight  of  the  twelve.  For,  like  one  of  Goldsmith's  characters,  "I  love 
everything  that's  old — old  friends,  old  times,  old  manors,  old  books, 
old  wine." 

Therefore  I  find  myself  particularly  pleased  at  being  associated 
with  this  book,  though  in  so  slight  a  way.  The  two  men  who  created 
it — for  in  this  case  the  author  and  the  artist  surely  stand  on  equal 
footing — are  my  old  friends.  Obviously,  the  book  is  one  of  old  times 
and  old  manors,  and  if  that  does  not  make  it  an  old  book,  what  could? 
Only  the  old  wine  is  lacking  to  complete  the  quintet.  And  even  that 
may  some  day  be  accessible  again.  Who  knows? 

— Julian  Street. 
NORFOLK,  CONN., 
September,  1921. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Monticello Frontispiece. 

Facing  Page 

The  Haunted  House,  New  Orleans 28 

Doughoregan  Manor 42 

The  Jumel  Mansion 54 

Mount  Vernon 68 

The  Quincy  Homestead 82 

The  Timothy  Dexter  Mansion 94 

The  Kendall  House 106 

The  Longfellow  House 120 

Cliveden 134 

The  Wentworth  Mansion 144 

The  Pringle  House 158 


MONTICELLO 


Famous  Colonial  Houses 


MONTICELLO 

IN  Thomas  Jefferson's  boyhood  imagination  the  hill  had  seemed  to 
climb  like  Jack's  beanstalk  to  the  infinite  clouds.  The  view  from 
his  Father's  dooryard  across  the  Rivanna  registered  each  day  through 
the  clear  lenses  of  his  eyes  upon  the  sensitive  plate  of  his  memory,  and 
so  upon  his  heart.  As  a  lad  he  staged  mental  melodrama  upon  its 
symmetrical  slopes  and  built  an  air-castle  upon  its  summit.  Every 
engagement  of  Caesar's  conquests,  every  adventure  of  the  pious  Aeneas 
found  on  Monticello  a  proper  setting.  If  his  schoolbooks  had  not  been 
burned  in  the  fire  at  Shadwell  we  might  expect  to  find,  on  the  margins 
of  his  Horace,  a  sketcfi  of  the  castle  of  his  dream,  for  Jefferson  drew 
rather  well  and  probably  sketched  just  as  well  during  study  hour  as  any 
other  boy  of  his  age. 

He  was  nineteen  when  his  dream  promised  to  materialize.  That 
summer  and  the  next,  when  he  was  at  home  for  the  long  holiday,  he 
would  cross  the  Rivanna  in  his  canoe  and  climb  the  slope  to  see  how 
the  workmen  were  getting  on  with  the  levelling  for  his  castle.  As  the 
boy  had  grown  towards  manhood  the  hill  no  longer  towered  into  the 
skies,  but  whatever  the  picture  lost  in  size,  it  gained  in  rich  associa 
tions.  It  was  still  his  mountain:  Monticello — "little  mountain" — 
he  called  it.  "Our  own  dear  Monticello,  where  Nature  has  spread  such 
a  rich  mantle  under  the  eye,  mountains,  forests,  rocks,  rivers.  There 
is  a  mountain  there  in  the  opposite  direction  of  the  afternoon's  sun, 
the  valley  between  which  and  Monticello  is  five  hundred  feet  deep. 

17 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

.  .  .  How  sublime  to  look  down  upon  the  workhouse  of  Nature,  to 
see  her  clouds,  hail,  snow,  rain,  thunder,  all  fabricated  at  our  feet." 

In  all  weathers,  under  all  trials,  his  heart  took  refuge  on  the  hill. 
He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1767,  made  headway  in  his  profession, 
and  was  sent  to  the  House  of  Burgesses,  honors  which  only  quickened 
his  impatient  accomplishment,  and  his  desire  for  a  home  upon  his 
mountain.  In  1769  its  plans  were  ready,  and  work  began.  Thirty 
years  later  it  was  finished.  During  those  years  he  wrote  his  country's 
bill  of  divorce  from  her  harsh  proprietor,  and  was  nearly  captured  at 
Monticello  by  British  raiders.  Monticello  saw  him  ride  down  the 
winding  road  as  a  Burgess,  to  ride  up  again  as  a  member  of  the  Con 
tinental  Congress;  honored  him  as  Governor  of  Virginia,  and  waved 
him  Godspeed  as  he  left  to  succeed  Benjamin  Franklin  as  envoy  to 
France;  hailed  him  home  as  Washington's  secretary  of  state,  and  then 
reluctantly  surrendered  him  to  eight  years  in  a  new  White  House  that 
stood  in  a  sandy  wilderness  somewhere  down  on  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac.  But  when  his  active  life  was  done,  after  he  had  not  only 
written  the  Declaration  of  Independence  but  prosecuted  it,  added  half 
a  continent  to  its  jurisdiction,  and  administered  the  doctrine  that  all 
men  are  created  free  and  equal,  he  came  back  to  the  mountain  of  his 
memory  to  gaze  down  upon  the  workhouse  of  Nature. 

"While  it  is  too  much  to  say,"  writes  Julian  Street,  "that  one  would 
recognize  it  as  the  house  of  the  writer  of  the  Declaration,  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say,  that  once  one  does  know  it,  one  can  trace  a  clear  affinity 
resulting  from  a  common  origin — an  affinity  much  more  apparent, 
by  the  way,  than  can  be  traced  between  the  work  of  Michelangelo  on 
St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  on  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  and  in  his 
'David.' 

"The  introductory  paragraph  to  the  Declaration  ascends  into  the 

18 


MONTICELLO 


body  of  the  document  as  gracefully  as  the  wide  flights  of  easy  steps 
ascend  to  the  doors  of  Monticello;  the  long  and  beautifully  balanced 
paragraph  which  follows,  building  word  upon  word  and  sentence  upon 
sentence  into  a  central  statement,  has  a  form  as  definite  and  graceful 
as  that  of  the  finely  proportioned  house;  the  numbered  paragraphs 
which  follow,  setting  forth  separate  details,  are  like  rooms  within  the 
house,  and — I  have  just  come  upon  the  coincidence  with  a  pleasant 
start  such  as  might  be  felt  by  the  discoverer  of  some  complex  and 
important  cipher — as  there  are  twenty-seven  of  the  numbered  para 
graphs  in  the  Declaration,  so  there  are  twenty-seven  rooms  in  Monti- 
cello.  Last  of  all  there  are  two  little  phrases  in  the  Declaration  (the 
phrases  stating  that  we  shall  hold  our  British  brethren  in  future  as 
we  hold  the  rest  of  mankind — 'enemies  in  war;  in  peace,  friends'),  which 
I  would  liken  to  the  small  twin  buildings,  one  of  them  Jefferson's 
office,  the  other  that  of  the  overseer,  which  stand  on  either  side  of  the 
lawn  at  Monticello,  at  some  distance  from  the  house." 

The  house  which  inspired  and  witnessed  the  activities  of  so  promi 
nent  a  figure  could  hardly  lack  distinction,  and  this,  of  course,  Monti- 
cello  has.  What  is  more,  Monticello  is  a  monument  of  technical 
architecture  which  attracts  the  eager  attention  of  every  student  of 
American  domestic  building.  The  question  they  all  ask,  and  the 
question  that  cannot  be  answered,  is:  "Where  could  this  farmer- 
lawyer  boy  have  got  his  expert  training  in  architecture?"  His  library 
might  have  given  us  a  clue,  but  it  was  burned  at  Shadwell  in  1770. 
We  know  he  felt  this  loss  acutely,  for,  next  to  his  house,  Jefferson  loved 
his  books.  He  asked  anxiously  of  their  fate.  An  old  slave  answered: 
"All  burnt,  my  young  master,  all  burnt.  But  never  mind,  sir" — and 
his  wrinkled  face  broke  into  a  broad  smile — "we  saved  your  old  fiddle!" 
The  new  house  at  Monticello  was  even  then  far  enough  along  to  take 

19 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

in  his  mother's  family,  evicted  by  the  fire.  The  building  continued. 
It  was  slow  work,  on  an  extensive  plan. 

"Mr.  Jefferson,"  said  one  of  Rochambeau's  aides  later,  "is  the 
first  American  who  has  consulted  the  fine  arts  to  know  how  he  should 
shelter  himself  from  the  weather."  With  no  continental  travel  for 
background,  with  only  the  meagre  pictorial  record  of  the  period  to 
draw  upon,  he  somehow  responded  instantly  to  the  simplicity  and 
useful  beauty  of  the  classic,  and  translated  it  to  his  castle.  By  the 
Greeks,  for  example,  it  was  thought  improper  that  a  roof  should  indi 
cate  anything  but  a  glorification  of  the  heavens;  the  idea  that  human 
feet  might  be  walking  on  the  upper  side  of  a  ceiling  was  sacrilege.  This 
(and  other  more  practical  engineering  reasons)  dictated  single-story 
buildings.  Jefferson's  eye  for  balance  caught  the  pictorial  advantages 
of  one-story  construction,  but  he  needed  two  stories  for  Monticello, 
and  by  his  shrewd  planning  both  the  pure  classic  tradition  and  pure 
American  comfort  were  reconciled. 

At  the  end  of  a  broad  lawn,  in  full  relief  against  the  distant  sky, 
stands  a  red  brick  house  with  a  clean,  tall  portico.  The  four  gleam 
ing  pillars  stand  guard  like  peace-time  sentinels.  A  white  balustrade 
runs  along  the  eaves  of  the  building,  tempering  the  irregularities  in 
the  roof  except  where  the  smooth  curve  of  a  dome  rises  above  the 
center.  The  feeling  is  classic,  and  so  suggests  a  single  story,  and  the 
length  of  the  lofty  windows  flanking  the  portico  seems  to  confirm  the 
impression  that  a  single  frame  has  been  carried  the  full  height  of  the 
house.  Closer  examination,  however,  of  the  irregularities  just  re 
marked  in  the  roof  reveals  them  as  the  gabled  windows  of  an  upper 
story.  In  cold,  unprofessional  analysis,  the  compromise  sounds 
thoroughly  impractical.  Just  the  contrary  is  true,  for  Jefferson 
took  up  every  challenging  problem  with  enthusiasm,  and  applied 


20 


MONTICELLO 


to  its  solution  a  sure  sense  of  balance  and  a  hearty  appetite  for 
detail. 

Indoors  the  one-story  tradition  is  quite  as  respectfully  acknowl 
edged,  and  as  cleverly  evaded.  The  entrance  hall  is  a  lofty  room  of 
great  dignity,  almost  so  good  that  a  job-lot  of  Victorian  furniture  has 
not  damaged  its  appearance,  and  unquestionably  so  good  that  even 
the  most  critical  architectural  eye  will  not  take  offense  at  a  balcony 
which  travels  three  of  its  sides.  There  is  the  balcony,  but  where,  in 
quires  your  classic  eye,  are  the  stairs?  Concealed  in  a  passage,  where 
they  cannot  break  the  form  of  the  hall  from  which  visitors  are  to  gain 
their  first  impression  of  the  interior. 

If  the  visitor  in  Jefferson's  day  went  further,  as  his  uniform  hospi 
tality  required,  he  may  have  noticed  as  he  passed  to  the  drawing-room 
that  the  portal  between  the  two  rooms  had  two  pairs  of  doors.  There 
was  a  definite  reason  for  them:  the  wall  must  be  heavy  to  support  the 
octagon  in  which  the  drawing-room  was  situated,  and  over  which  rose 
the  dome.  A  single  pair  of  doors  would  have  made  an  ugly  recess  in 
either  room.  Two  sets  of  doors  finished  both  rooms  correctly,  but  pre 
sented  just  twice  as  many  nice  problems  of  treatment.  So  the  first  set 
was  made  of  heavily  paneled  wood,  and  might  be  folded  back  into  an 
invisible  pocket  in  the  passage;  the  second  set  was  a  pair  of  light  case 
ments,  and  if  the  visitor  were  to  press  a  spring  on  either  one,  both 
would  close  by  a  mechanism  concealed  overhead. 

Throughout  the  building  there  were  ingenious  touches  which 
disclosed  beneath  their  first  impression  of  simple  luxurious  comfort 
the  patient  scheming  of  the  builder.  The  drawing-room  was  octag 
onal  in  order  that  five  windows  might  frame  clear  vistas  in  as  many 
directions  across  the  sweeping  valleys  to  the  horizon.  The  floor 
there  is  of  squares  of  cherry  wood,  each  with  a  liberal  border  of  con- 

21 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

trasting  beech;  both  woods  were  laid  only  after  Jefferson  had  made 
painstaking  experiment  in  the  color  and  in  the  wearing  and  joining 
qualities  of  various  kinds  of  flooring.  The  same  note  of  formality 
which  one  feels  in  the  Pringle  house  of  Charleston  as  he  passes  from 
room  to  room  through  heavily  pedimented  doorways  is  sounded  at 
Monticello;  but  where  Miles  Brewton,  in  his  Charleston  house,  held 
strictly  to  the  "egg-and-dart"  of  the  classic  mode,  Thomas  Jefferson 
embellished  the  friezes  above  the  doors  of  his  drawing-room  with  a 
motive  of  tomahawks,  scalping  knives  and  rosettes!  He  feared  that  the 
dining-room,  with  only  two  southerly  windows  for  ventilation,  might 
become  close  toward  the  end  of  a  long  meal,  so  he  gave  a  slight  dome 
like  concavity  to  the  ceiling,  and  at  its  focal  center  concealed  under 
a  grille  the  intake  of  a  ventilator  which  leads  up  through  the  roof. 
He  built  a  recess  for  the  sideboard  with  the  double  effect  of  preserving 
the  lines  of  the  apartment  and  of  displaying  a  handsome  piece  of  fur 
niture  to  its  best  advantage.  An  exquisite  Adam  mantel,  with  Wedg 
wood  panels,  stands  between  two  of  the  windows,  and  you  would  never 
guess  that  in  one  of  its  sides  is  a  door,  and  behind  that  door  a  dumb 
waiter  leading  from  the  service  rooms  below.  He  wanted  his  body- 
servant's  room  conveniently  near  his  own,  so  a  staircase  to  the  valet's 
quarters  ascends  through  a  spacious  closet  off  the  master's  chamber. 
None  of  the  liaison  between  art  and  artifice  would  be  remarkable  today, 
perhaps.  There  are  modern  houses  as  honestly  built  as  men  of  taste 
can  plan  and  men  of  wealth  can  buy,  to  match  Touraine  for  splendor, 
Italy  for  gilt,  a  highly  organized  railway  terminal  for  convenience  and 
Sybaris  for  comfort.  But  given  the  workmanship,  the  materials  and 
the  engineering  of  any  period  in  our  domestic  architecture,  Monticello 
challenges  them  all  to  show  a  better  plan. 

Long  balustraded  walks  reach  out  to  right  and  left  from  the 

22 


MONTICELLO 


house.  Someone  has  likened  them  to  two  friendly  outstretched  arms, 
holding  in  each  hand  not  a  jewel,  but  a  dainty  summer-house. 
They  are  more  than  decorative  promenades — each  is  the  roof  of  a 
subterranean  arcade,  passing  from  the  main  building  to  the  ser 
vants'  quarters.  All  of  the  strictly  domestic  affairs  were  in  the 
cellar-story,  made  habitable  by  the  fact  that  it  was  just  a  step  down 
the  hillside,  and  made  by  no  means  the  least  interesting  portion 
of  the  building  by  further  evidence  of  Jefferson's  genius.  It  is  a 
veritable  catacomb.  He  built  there  a  kitchen  ventilated  by  long  ducts 
which  carried  cooking  odors  to  distant  outlets;  he  built  cisterns,  a 
large  carriage  court,  cold-rooms,  bins  for  fruits,  and  wood,  and  cider; 
servants'  quarters  so  placed  that  they  were  cool  in  summer  and  warm 
in  winter.  Like  Mount  Vernon,  and  every  other  colonial  estate  of 
any  size,  Monticello  was  a  self-maintaining  establishment,  which  sup 
ported  the  labor  of  several  trades.  But  the  tailor-shop,  the  distillery, 
the  smithy,  the  dye-house,  the  cobblery,  the  weaver's  shop — all  were 
set  apart  from  the  main  house  and  concealed  from  the  general  eye. 
Later  architects  thought  enough  of  the  treatment  of  the  arcade  pas 
sages  to  the  servants'  quarters  to  copy  them  for  the  subterranean  bar 
racks  at  Fortress  Monroe. 

One  wonders  where  Thomas  Jefferson  found  the  time  for  all  this 
labor  and  supervision.  The  answer  must  be  that  his  house  was  his  one 
consuming  avocation.  It  is  almost  a  truism  that  the  men  upon  whom 
are  made  the  heaviest  demands  find  time  to  invite  the  greatest  number 
of  demands.  As  Roosevelt  loved  his  natural  history,  and  made  affec 
tionate  excursions  into  botany,  so  Jefferson  knew  every  tree  and  shrub 
on  his  estate,  and  watched  over  it.  Each  week  during  his  presidency 
a  letter  was  despatched  from  the  White  House  to  Captain  Bacon,  his 
overseer  in  charge,  directing  transplanting,  grading,  repairs,  improve- 

23 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

ments.  Many  of  the  workmen  on  the  estate  were  men  whom  he  him 
self  had  trained  in  their  crafts.  Some  were  slaves,  whom  he  later  freed 
to  practise  the  trades  he  had  given  them.  Before  he  had  stone  cut 
and  measured  for  the  building  he  tested  the  stone;  he  weathered  vari 
ous  woods;  he  made  experiments  in  brick-laying  which  in  some  cases 
led  him  to  strange  conclusions,  but  which,  like  everything  else  he 
undertook  about  the  building,  had  practical  reasoning  behind  them. 
And  yet,  during  all  the  patient  hours  he  spent  in  drafting  and  direct 
ing,  the  miles  he  walked  in  surveying  and  landscaping,  he  never  let  the 
cloud  of  details  eclipse  the  artist's  star. 

Jefferson  has  been  much  idolized  for  his  directness,  his  logic,  his 
practicality.  He  undoubtedly  gave  the  country  what  today  would  be 
termed  "a  good  business  administration."  It  is  tempting  to  leave 
him  to  posterity  with  that  reputation,  and  with  the  Louisiana  Pur 
chase  as  its  brightest  testimonial,  the  shrewdest  real  estate  deal  in  our 
history.  But  Monticello  is  so  obviously  the  product  of  an  artist  and  a 
scholar  that  we  learn  with  no  hint  of  damage  to  his  commoner  reputa 
tion  that  the  man  who  had  spent  his  life  upon  this  estate  had  also  spent 
much  more  money  than  he  possessed;  that  his  generosity  approached 
extravagance;  that  his  library  of  some  seven  thousand  volumes,  the 
best  then  in  America,  was  sold  after  his  death  to  the  government  (to 
replace  the  library  the  British  destroyed  at  Washington  in  1814)  be 
cause  it  had  to  be  sold  to  meet  his  debts;  and  that  Monticello  itself 
finally  passed  out  of  the  hands  of  his  family.  With  Jefferson  gone 
Monticello  could  never  be  wholly  itself  again.  It  must  stand  always  as 
the  finest  exposition  of  the  heart  of  the  artist  who  conceived  the  plan 
for  the  University  of  Virginia  at  Monticello's  skirts,  who  found  when 
he  visited  Nimes  a  Roman  Temple  which  so  fascinated  him  that  he 

said  the  peasants  thought  him  a  mad  Englishman  contemplating  sui- 

24 


MONTICELLO 


cide  in  its  ruins,  who  copied  that  same  temple  for  the  Capitol  of  Rich 
mond,  and  who  wrote  to  a  Paris  acquaintance:  "  Here  I  am  gazing 
whole  hours  at  the  Maison  Quarree  like  a  lover  at  his  mistress." 

When  Jefferson  died  he  was  buried  on  the  estate.  An  army  of 
human  rodents  came  to  see  to  his  grave  and  to  nibble  away  most  of  the 
memorial  shaft,  and  it  was  only  through  the  persistent  efforts  of  his 
grand-daughter,  Miss  Randolph,  that  the  United  States  stepped  in 
and  restored  it.  Meanwhile  the  estate  had  been  sold  under  question 
able  circumstances  to  a  Captain  Uriah  Levy.  In  justice  to  him  be  it 
said  that  he  felt  the  responsibility  of  his  charge,  and  bequeathed  it  at 
his  death  to  the  people  of  the  United  States.  But  the  Supreme  Court 
decreed  that  this  definition  was  too  vague,  and  after  a  prolonged 
debate  among  Levy's  heirs,  his  nephew,  Jefferson  Levy,  acquired  for 
$10,500  the  title  to  the  buildings  and  218  acres  of  the  little  mountain. 

Sporadic  efforts  have  been  made  to  buy  the  estate  and  rescue  it 
from  the  casual  upkeep  which  is  carrying  Monticello  steadily  towards 
the  shadows  of  oblivion;  one  such  movement,  under  the  leadership  of 
Mrs.  Martin  W.  Littleton,  bade  fair  to  succeed,  and  there  were  patri 
otic  women  ready  to  assume  its  care  as  they  have  so  admirably  done  at 
Mount  Vernon.  The  Governor  of  Virginia  is  silent  on  the  subject, 
and  the  Wilson  government,  which  owed  more  perhaps  to  Jefferson  than 
to  any  other  single  preceptor,  was  otherwise  engaged.  With  the  return 
of  peace  the  renewal  of  the  project  is,  to  say  the  least,  appropriate. 
Whether  it  contains  an  appeal  to  the  honor  of  citizenship  in  a  nation 
in  which  all  men  are  free  and  equal,  is  for  its  citizens — and  one  of  them 
is  the  owner — to  decide. 


NEW  ORLEANS 


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THE  HAUNTED  HOUSE,  NEW  ORLEANS 

FAR  down  in  the  vieux  carrS,  the  old  French  quarter  of  New  Orleans, 
where  Hospital  Street  meets  Royal,  the  drone  of  the  modern  city 
at  work  comes  faintly  through  the  morning  air.  Back  yonder,  above 
Canal  Street,  there  are  motor  trucks,  profanity  and  clangor;  here  there  is 
hardly  a  street-car,  and  if  you  hear  loud  voices  they  are  filtered  through 
the  shutters  of  a  shabby  dwelling  where  a  hopeful  candidate  for  the 
Opera  is  practising  her  topmost.  The  old  French  Opera  House,  the 
scene  of  Patti's  debut,  departed  this  life  only  last  year — a  gay  life,  marked 
by  amours  and  appointments,  triumphs  and  disappointments,  dances 
and  duels.  Presently  there  will  be  gaps  in  the  circle  of  musicians  who 
always  settle  about  the  focal  point  of  an  opera  house,  and  you  will  hear 
no  more  the  manifold  outpourings  of  their  several  souls,  throats  and 
fiddles. 

Their  passing  will  deepen  the  twilight  of  an  antiquity  which  New 
Orleans  has  cherished  with  more  sympathy  than  all  the  rest  of  our 
American  cities.  Rigid  modern  buildings  with  Louis  XVI  fronts  and 
O'Shaughnessy  backs  will  rear  their  ventilators,  tanks  and  pent-houses 
where,  once  upon  a  time,  warm  walls  and  climbing  cupolas,  odd  con 
tours  and  vine-like  wrought-iron  railings  melted  into  a  strangely  com 
plex  and  beautiful  composition.  Even  now,  as  the  fitful  trolley-car 
clanks  past  the  corner  of  Hospital  and  Royal,  a  tremor  shakes  a  few 
more  crumbling  grains  from  the  arches  of  the  old  Spanish  Barracks. 
Soon  they  will  be  returned  to  earth.  You  will  forget  that  France  gave 

New  Orleans  to  Spain  to  pay  for  her  help  in  the  English  wars;  that 

29 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

Napoleon,  sitting  in  his  bath-tub  and  quarreling  with  his  brothers, 
maintained  stoutly  that  since  he  had  just  forced  Spain  to  give  Louisiana 
back  to  him,  he  had  a  perfect  right  to  re-sell;  that  he  splashed  them 
into  agreement;  and  that  he  did  re-sell  the  territory  to  the  new  United 
States.  But  Napoleon's  legions  have  followed  Andrew  Jackson's  Ken 
tucky  riflemen  into  the  twilight. 

The  passing  of  the  old  order  has  a  hundred  conspicuous  mani 
festations  in  New  Orleans,  perhaps  because  there  is  a  legend  for  every 
old  house,  a  tragedy  for  every  shadow,  a  romantic  blood-stain  on  every 
pavement.  The  Absinthe  House  takes  in  lodgers.  The  Cabildo,  the 
ancient  Spanish  city  hall,  is  a  museum.  An  order  of  Catholic  sisters 
now  occupies  the  building  which  once  witnessed  the  quadroon  balls. 
There  is  African  ragtime  in  New  Orleans,  as  there  is  in  every  city  and 
town  where  squeals  the  talking-machine,  but  in  Beauregard  Square 
you  will  not  hear  today  the  thumping  of  the  voodoo  chant,  nor  see  the 
bamboula  danced,  as  you  might  have  in  the  days  when  it  was  Congo 
Square.  Ashes  unto  ashes,  dust  to — reinforced  concrete. 

Nowhere,  perhaps,  is  there  more  graphic  evidence  of  the  change 
than  right  here  at  Hospital  and  Royal  Streets.  Inspect  the  house 
before  you.  The  days  of  its  grandeur  are  past.  The  concierge  says  a 
hundred  and  eighty  people  live  there  now — surely  it  was  not  intended 
for  so  many.  But  it  is  a  lodging-house,  and  the  task  of  cleaning  up 
after  the  lodgers  must  make  them  seem  to  the  concierge  like  a  hun 
dred  and  eighty  or  more. 

From  the  street  corner  diagonally  opposite  your  eyes  take  in  a 
spacious  square  building,  three  stories  high,  of  cement-colored  stucco. 
It  has  a  flat  roof,  and  its  architecture  suggests  that  the  daughter  of  a 
Florentine  palace  became  the  bride  of  a  small  but  snappily  dressed 

United  States  Post  Office.   It  stands  flush  with  the  banquette,  and  wears 

30 


THE      HAUNTED      HOUSE 

a  frill  of  balcony  clear  round  its  two  street  sides,  under  whose  tempering 
shade  you  may  distinguish  the  faded  red  of  the  lower  story,  and  the 
entrance  to  a  mysterious  tunnel  which  is  in  reality  a  deeply  arched 
doorway. 

Under  its  modern  exterior  you  will  detect  hints  of  its  great  age. 
There  is,  for  example,  a  note  of  caprice  in  the  red  wrought-iron  railings 
of  the  balcony.  They  may  have  been  made,  as  were  many  in  the  vieux 
carr6,  at  the  very  forge  of  Jean  Lafitte,  the  pirate-blacksmith  who 
commanded  the  marauders  of  Barataria,  and  whose  pirate  four-pound 
ers  helped  out  the  rifles  at  the  battle  of  New  Orleans.  Generations  of 
idlers  have  worn  smooth  and  rusty  brown  the  peacock  tints  on  the  iron 
columns  that  support  the  balcony.  There  are  touches  of  vermilion  and 
lavender  in  the  sharp  green  of  the  shutters  at  the  second-floor  windows. 

The  architecture  is  Italo-American,  and  so  are  the  urchins  popping 
from  the  doors  to  stare  at  you  as  you  wait  for  admittance.  Their 
faces  are  soiled,  and  so  is  the  black-and-white  marble  floor  behind  the 
heavy  spiked  gates.  Note,  above  you,  the  coffered  and  embossed 
ceiling,  appraise  the  graceful  fan-light  over  the  door,  examine  the 
elaborate  carving  of  the  door  itself,  for  these  are  relics  which  indicate 
the  grand  manner  in  which  this  house  once  welcomed  its  guests.  For 
get  that  the  ceiling  is  blistered,  that  two  panes  are  gone  from  the  side 
windows,  and  that  night-blooming  lodgers  have  kicked  the  haunches 
off  the  carved  steeds  of  Phoebus  Apollo  on  the  door.  A  century  ago  a 
slave  would  have  swung  wide  the  portal  with  great  ceremony,  and  you 
would  have  mounted  the  winding  stair  to  an  upper  hall  which  was 
notable  for  its  elegance;  today  you  find  it  dingy,  uninspiring  and  for 
lorn.  Not  a  ghost  in  sight  anywhere. 

Comes  the  concierge  and  swears  and  deposes  that  in  the  year  of 
Our  Lord  1919  she  did  see  with  her  own  eyes  a  headless  man  march  up 

31 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

these  stairs,  and  that  she  has  accordingly  caused  the  house  to  be 
sprinkled  with  holy  water.  Did  he  look  like  Louis  Philippe?  Well, 
he  looked  something  like  him,  and  yet  differed  from  him — the  light 
wasn't  good,  and  besides  (and  this  was  a  happy  thought)  the  figure 
had  no  head,  and  resemblances  are  hard  to  establish  under  those 
conditions.  Louis  Philippe  is  believed  to  have  slept  here,  though 
Mr.  George  W.  Cable  doubts  this,  on  the  ground  that  in  1798,  the  year 
of  the  royal  visit,  no  such  high  buildings  were  erected  for  fear  they 
would  sink  into  the  soft  ground.  No,  the  headless  man  was  not 
Louis  Philippe,  but  some  other  character  in  the  lurid  history  of  the 
building. 

That  history  began  in  the  first  year  or  two  of  the  century,  when 
the  Baron  de  Pontalba,  a  stanch  old  Bonapartist  who  did  as  he  pleased, 
did  it  with  exceptionally  good  taste  and  built  this  mansion.  Soft 
ground  or  no  soft  ground,  the  Pontalbas  were  a  vigorous  family,  who, 
when  they  wanted  houses,  built  them.  Gossip  said  the  Baron  and 
his  daughter-in-law  never  got  on  well  together.  There  may  have  been 
some  truth  in  it,  for  years  later  they  found  the  Baron  dead  in  his  room 
at  Mont  1'Eveque,  and  daughter-in-law  in  her  own  room  badly  wounded 
by  pistol  shots.  True,  however,  to  the  tradition  of  hardihood  which 
ran  in  the  family,  she  recovered,  and  lived  through  the  Franco-Prussian 
War,  carrying  the  bullets  in  her  body  to  her  grave. 

The  Baron  had  earnestly  advised  Napoleon  to  sell  Louisiana  to 
Jefferson.  Oddly  enough,  the  Purchase  which  he  advocated  brought 
about  a  change  in  New  Orleans  which  attacked  the  very  identity  of  such 
families  as  the  Pontalbas.  An  invasion  of  uncultured  Americans  from 
the  north  swept  down  the  valley,  settled  in  the  city,  and  beat  against 
the  social  barriers  of  the  French  and  Spanish  circles  in  the  vieux  carr6. 
Hitherto  they  had  dictated  the  life  of  the  city,  and  it  was  disturbing 

32 


THE      HAUNTED      HOUSE 

to  those  who  dated  from  the  "filles  de  la  cassette"  and  the  grandees  of 
the  Spanish  Main  to  contemplate  this  immigration  of  a  new  race, 
unancestored  and,  from  a  Latin  standpoint,  uncivilized.  It  was  more 
than  disturbing,  it  was  electro-chemical,  and  although  there  was  at 
first  little  fraternity  between  the  races,  it  produced  shortly  a  lively 
society. 

The  Duke  of  Saxe- Weimar  is  responsible  for  an  interesting  picture 
of  its  customs  and  habits  in  1825.  During  a  visit  to  New  Orleans  he 
was  entertained  at  the  home  of  a  famous  gambler,  the  Baron  de  Mar- 
igny  (he  who  had  entertained  the  princes  of  Orleans  in  '98),  where  he 
admired,  not  without  cause,  a  set  of  chinaware  decorated  with  por 
traits  of  the  French  royal  family  and  its  palaces.  The  winter  was  gay, 
and  he  made  the  rounds  of  dances,  masques  and  theatres.  He  fre 
quented  coffee-houses,  he  danced  with  the  ladies,  whom  he  found 
"very  pretty,  with  a  genteel  French  air,"  and  when  "the  gentlemen, 
who  were  far  behind  the  ladies  in  elegance,  did  not  long  remain,  but 
hastened  away  to  other  balls,"  he  was  among  those  also-hastening,  for 
the  naughty  young  gentlemen  were  on  their  way  to  a  quadroon  ball. 
On  another  occasion  he  called  upon  the  august  lawyer  Grymes,  who 
figured  prominently  in  the  notorious  case  of  Salome  Mueller,  a  white 
slave-girl.  Grymes  was  a  "foremost  citizen"  in  that  society,  so  was 
Miller,  Salome's  claimant,  who  probably  knew  she  was  white  and 
therefore  entitled  to  freedom.  A  foremost  citizen,  even  in  our  own 
enlightened  and  prohibited  day,  can  do  no  wrong — if  he  has  the  right 
lawyer.  The  Duke  found  the  city  magnificent  in  her  unbridled  emo 
tion,  charming  in  her  graces,  attractive  if  perverse  in  her  ethics,  and 
altogether  capable  of  making  a  stranger's  head  spin. 

Thus,  when  there  came  to  New  Orleans  in  1825  a  benevolent  mid 
dle-aged  gentleman  of  France,  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  the  city  gave 

33 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

him  a  superlative  welcome.  In  the  light  of  recent  Franco-American 
exchanges  it  is  pleasant  to  think  of  him  as  the  recipient  of  every  token 
of  hospitality  the  city  could  offer,  from  triumphal  arches  to  dinners 
of  state.  It  suits  our  specific  purpose  to  watch  him  chatting  in  the 
drawing-room  of  the  Pontalba  house,  to  peep  through  the  shutters  of 
the  great  windows  and  see  the  street  below  filled  with  bobbing  lanterns 
of  the  crowd  that  has  collected  to  see  the  great  man  step  into  his  car 
riage,  to  turn  back  again  into  the  drawing-room  and  see  that  he  has 
no  intention  of  leaving,  for  he  is  the  center  of  a  sparkle  of  wit  that 
matches  the  crystal  chandelier  for  brilliance.  Here  he  discoursed,  up 
yonder  he  passed  the  night.  With  his  departure  in  the  morning,  the 
chronicled  glory  of  the  house  ends,  and  its  tragedy  begins. 

Among  the  old  court  records  there  is  an  entry  which  establishes 
the  fact  that  at  the  height  of  the  interesting  social  period  marked  by 
Lafayette's  visit  the  Pontalba  house  changed  hands.  On  August  30, 
1831,  it  was  bought  by  Madame  McCarty-Lopez-Blanque-Lalaurie,  a 
woman  of  more  than  ordinary  magnetism  and  the  wife  of  Dr.  Louis 
Lalaurie.  Her  establishment  was  quite  up  to  the  standards  of  Creole 
society.  The  touch  of  her  expert  hand  was  evident  in  the  decoration 
of  the  house,  and  the  choice  and  disposition  of  the  furniture  and  paint 
ings  were  a  compliment  to  her  taste.  Her  ten  slaves  were  more  than 
enough  to  care  for  its  needs.  She  drove  out  along  the  Bayou  road  of 
an  afternoon  behind  fine  horses,  her  coachman  was  coveted  as  a  cor 
rect  and  desirable  servant.  What  the  world  calls  fine  people  came  to 
her  house  with  as  keen  an  appetite  for  the  intellectual  cocktails  of  the 
hostess  as  for  the  creature  hospitality  they  anticipated  at  her  table. 

Like  most  ladies  of  social  pursuits  she  had  pronounced  likes  and 
dislikes,  and  she  got  herself  talked  about.  Being  a  pure-blood  Creole 
she  resented  the  nouveau-riche  American  invasion  of  the  city.  "Let 

34 


THE      HAUNTED      HOUSE 

them  come,"  she  said.  ' 'There  are  some  things  they  cannot  buy" — 
and  her  good  opinion  was  one,  her  invitations  another.  Some  of 
"them"  resented  the  fact  that  they  would  never  be  bidden  to  enter  the 
deep-arched  vestibule,  nor  see  the  ponderous  door  swing  wide  to  them 
as  guests,  nor  ascend  the  graceful  winding  stair.  So  they  railed,  and 
Madame  Lalaurie  tossed  her  head.  They  muttered  unpleasant  things, 
and  she  sniffed.  Then  they  cried  scandal,  to  which  she  was  deaf. 

A  susceptible  young  Creole  attached  to  the  office  of  the  district 
attorney  was  sent  one  day  to  call  upon  Madame  Lalaurie  and  to  bring 
to  her  attention  the  annoying  rumor  that  she  had  been  unkind  to  her 
slaves.  He  went  away  with  his  copy  of  Article  XX  of  the  Old  Black 
Code  unrecited,  and  his  addled  young  head  full  of  impatience  that 
such  slander  could  have  been  perpetrated  against  a  person  so  obviously 
kindly  as  Madame  Lalaurie  had  just  shown  herself  to  be.  He  had 
been,  in  fact,  charmed,  and  he  admitted  it. 

There  is  no  telling  how  long  the  matter  might  have  carried  on  if 
it  had  not  been  for  a  chance  glimpse  through  a  window.  The  unsub 
stantiated  scandal  persisted.  But  there  happened  to  be  a  small  stair 
case  window  in  a  neighbor's  house  which  gave  on  Madame  Lalaurie's 
courtyard,  and  which  commanded  not  only  the  screened  courtyard- 
galleries  of  the  house  itself  but  those  of  the  slave  quarters,  which  stood 
at  right  angles  to  the  house. 

The  neighbor  was  going  upstairs  when  she  heard  a  piercing  shriek. 
From  the  window  she  saw  a  little  negro  girl  fly  screaming  across  the 
courtyard,  with  Madame  Lalaurie  in  close  pursuit,  the  lady  armed 
with  a  whip.  Into  the  shelter  of  the  house  fled  the  child,  then  out 
again  upon  the  lower  latticed  balcony.  Although  the  neighbor  could 
not  penetrate  the  lattice,  she  followed  the  progress  of  the  chase  by^a 
crescendo  of  terrified  cries,  as  the  child  raced  up  the  outside  stairs  to 

35 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

the  next  gallery,  then  to  the  next.  In  a  moment  she  emerged  upon 
the  roof,  her  last  frantic  bid  for  sanctuary.  There  were  seven  different 
angles  of  pitch  to  that  roof,  and  it  was  covered  with  shiny  tiles.  The 
child  slipped,  clutched,  fell  to  the  courtyard  and  was  killed. 

Madame  Lalaurie  buried  her  that  night  in  a  shallow  grave  in  the 
courtyard.  The  neighbor  saw  that,  too.  Then,  and  not  until  then, 
she  reported  the  whole  episode.  The  authorities  came  and  found  the 
grave,  corroborated  the  story,  and  punished  Madame  Lalaurie  by 
selling  all  her  slaves.  The  purchasers  were  her  relatives,  and  she 
promptly  bought  all  her  slaves  right  back. 

"She  starves  them,'*  said  Rumor,  sitting  on  the  eaves  of  a 
house  across  the  way.  "She  whips  them,  she  beats  them,"  the  story 
ran,  gaining  momentum. 

"But  see  how  fat  and  cheerful  is  her  coachman,"  replied  Reason. 
"Does  he  look  like  the  victim  of  cruelty?"  "He  is  a  spy  upon  the 
others,"  hissed  Rumor.  "Eh,  bien,"  said  New  Orleans,  and  yawned 
lightly,  "She  serves  such  dinners!" 

The  slave  who  cooked  those  dinners  was  a  radical.  She  tired  of 
practising  her  arts  with  a  twenty-four-foot  chain  clamped  to  her  ankle. 
On  the  afternoon  of  April  10,  1834,  after  extraordinary  provocation, 
she  became  desperate  and  set  fire  to  the  house. 

The  townsfolk  swarmed  to  the  fire,  and  were  greeted  at  the  door 
by  the  gracious  Madame  Lalaurie.  She  directed  her  friends  in  their 
efforts  to  remove  her  costly  furniture  from  the  house.  When  someone 
suggested  seeing  that  there  was  no  human  life  still  endangered  in  the 
building  she  said  that  it  was  quite  empty,  and  that  there  was  no  neces 
sity  of  visiting  the  slave  quarters.  Judge  Canonge  took  it  upon  him 
self  to  investigate,  but  the  smoke  drove  him  back.  There  were  some 
in  the  crowd,  however,  who  were  neither  her  friends  nor  her  well- 

36 


THE      HAUNTED      HOUSE 

wishers,  and  who  insisted  that  the  slaves  had  not  been  removed.  In 
the  face  of  swelling  clouds  of  blinding  smoke  and  the  lady's  angry 
remonstrances,  a  man  finally  groped  his  way  into  the  slave  wing 
which  stood  at  right  angles  to  the  house. 

Within  a  few  moments  he  was  outside,  shouting.  Volunteers 
ran  back  with  him  into  the  slave  quarters.  In  the  tiny  cubicles  which 
served  as  living-space  for  those  humble  lives  were  seven  negroes,  some 
locked  in  while  the  fire  crept  toward  them,  others  chained  to  the  walls. 
Their  emaciated  bodies  bore  witness  to  famishing  hunger,  and  cruel 
sores  told  the  story  of  their  confinement.  They  were  carried  to  the 
street,  and  the  crowd,  having  helped  to  put  out  the  fire  in  the  house, 
took  fire  itself  and  charged  the  door.  Madame  Lalaurie  deftly  slammed 
it  in  their  faces. 

Her  resourcefulness  rose  to  the  situation.  By  subtle  management 
her  carriage  picked  its  way  through  the  crowd  a  few  hours  later  and 
drew  up  at  the  entrance.  Before  the  growing  throng  of  people  de 
tected  the  maneuver,  she  and  her  husband  were  inside  the  equipage  and 
rattling  round  the  corner,  "driven  up  Chartres  Street  in  a  close  car 
riage  which  I  saw  speeding  at  a  furious  rate"  (so  Henry  C.  Castellanos 
wrote  in  1895).  The  afternoon  parade  of  society  was  idling  along  the 
Bayou  Road;  her  skilful  driver  wove  his  way  through  the  stream  of 
carriages  and  gained  fast  on  the  pursuit  which  had  risen,  howling  at 
her  flight.  The  Lalauries  gained  the  shore  of  Lake  Pontchartrain,  put 
off  in  a  skiff,  boarded  a  schooner  for  Mandeville — up  sail,  and  safe 
away! 

The  coachman  began  his  return  journey  to  town,  and  ended  it 
when  he  met  the  pack  of  pursuers,  for  they  destroyed  him.  The  chase 
was  deferred  just  long  enough  for  the  lady  to  effect  her  escape  to  Mobile, 
and  thence  to  Paris.  There  rumor  followed,  and  she  was  avoided  by 

37 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

society.  Three  years  later  word  came  back  in  the  ships  that  Madame 
Lalaurie  was  dead  of  wounds  received  in  a  boar-hunt.  She  had  prob 
ably  hunted  as  hard  as  she  had  lived. 

We  cannot  surrender  her  to  the  savage  credulity  of  the  ages,  how 
ever,  without  suggesting  that  the  story  of  her  life,  although  generally  re 
garded  as  authentic,  may  have  been  gilded  here  and  there  by  intervening 
generations  of  highly-colored  imagination.  A  New  Orleans  man  writes: 

"I  happen  to  know  one  of  the  descendants  of  Madame  Lalaurie 
very  well,  and  I  have  seen  a  marble  bust  of  this  self-same  lady  whose 
alleged  record  as  a  slave  murderer  is  indignantly  repudiated  by  the 
self-same  descendants.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  those  stories  are  pretty 
much  of  a  piece  with  those  which  were  in  vogue  in  regard  to  throwing 
negro  slaves  into  the  furnaces  of  the  Mississippi  River  steamboats  and 
feeding  piccaninnies  to  alligators.  This  would  be  pretty  much  as  if 
you  or  I  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  Battery  and  chucked  all  of  our  money, 
diamonds,  and  worldly  possessions  into  New  York  Bay." 

That  April-day  crowd  in  New  Orleans  had  no  such  sober  judg 
ment.  After  the  coachman  had  been  murdered  they  returned  to 
Hospital  and  Royal  Streets  and  sacked  the  house  from  hall  to  bel 
vedere,  ripped  the  silk  curtains,  slashed  the  paintings,  tore  out  the 
chandeliers,  dug  up  two  slave  skeletons  from  the  courtyard,  pitched 
Madame  Lalaurie's  precious  possessions  out  of  the  windows  and 
made  bonfire  of  the  wreckage  in  the  street.  They  drank  and  looted 
and  terrorized  the  neighborhood  until  a  detachment  of  regulars  ap 
peared  under  the  sheriff's  command  and  put  an  end  to  the  orgy. 

The  shell  of  the  house  stood  abject  and  battered  for  a  number  of 
years,  its  broken  windows  telling  its  ugly  story  to  all  who  came  that 
way.  On  a  moonlight  night  an  impressionable  girl  passing  the  house 
could  readily  have  seen  the  ghost  of  a  woman's  form  leaning  imploringly 

38 


THE      HAUNTED      HOUSE 

from  the  belvedere — one  girl  did  see  it,  and  not  even  her  later  confession 
that  the  ghost  was  a  fabric  of  moonbeams  has  been  sufficient  to  rid  the 
building  of  its  name — The  Haunted  House.  Nor,  when  inside  the 
stout  old  walls  a  new  and  finer  residence  was  built  in  cheerful  defiance 
of  the  ghost,  could  the  spirit  of  tragedy  be  easily  banished.  We  shall 
hear  one  more  story — a  brief  one — and  then  we  may  judge. 

The  war  came  and  passed  and  left  New  Orleans  dominated  polit 
ically  by  those  who  had  been  their  slaves.  The  pendulum  swung  so  far 
to  the  extreme  that  a  public  school  for  both  white  and  black  children 
was  ordained  and,  by  coincidence  or  cunning  design,  was  established 
in  the  Haunted  House.  It  was  of  course  an  unfortunate  move,  and 
served  no  purpose  except  to  whet  racial  antagonism.  There  came, 
finally,  the  breaking  point.  A  white  political  organization  which  had 
been  recuperating  in  strength  sent  a  delegation  one  afternoon  to  call 
at  the  school.  They  were  met  by  the  teachers,  to  whom  they  issued 
a  command  to  muster  the  school  for  roll-call.  One  of  the  pupils,  a 
girl  of  exceptional  beauty,  heard  the  commotion  from  the  upper  hall, 
and  peering  over  the  banisters  realized  the  significance  of  the  roll-call — 
that  the  white  pupils  were  to  be  segregated  from  the  black.  She  leaned 
far  over,  to  catch  every  word,  when  a  shell  comb  fell  from  her  hair  and 
shattered  on  the  marble  floor  below.  She  burst  into  tears  and  fled  to 
an  upper  room. 

The  roll-call  ended.  All  pupils  who  had  negro  blood  were  ordered 
from  the  house.  When  the  slight  flurry  had  subsided,  and  the  dele 
gation  had  left,  the  principal  and  one  of  the  teachers  found  Marguerite 
upstairs  in  a  paroxysm  of  grief.  "The  comb  was  my  mother's,"  she 
sobbed,  and  when  the  teacher  tried  to  comfort  her,  became  hysterical. 
The  principal  drew  the  teacher  outside.  "It  is  not  on  account  of  the 
comb,"  she  said.  "Marguerite's  mother  was  an  octoroon;  she  married 

39 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

a  white  sea-captain.  He  loved  her  so  much  that  in  order  to  marry  her 
he  opened  his  wrist  and  let  a  few  drops  of  her  blood  into  his  own,  so 
that  he  might  swear  that  he  had  African  blood  in  his  veins  and  get  a 
marriage  license.  Only  Marguerite  and  I  and  one  or  two  others  knew 
her  story — and  no  one  would  have  suspected,  for  she  is  so  beautiful. 
She  is  engaged  to  be  married,  and  her  fianc£  didn't  know.  But  the 
roll-call — now  she  will  leave  school,  and  he  must  learn  of  it." 

Which  was  the  greater  tragedy — the  brutality  of  slave  torture,  or 
the  death  of  the  exquisite  school-girl's  romance?  It  may  be  you  will 
find  the  answer  from  the  ghost,  if  ten  years  of  children's  lessons,  and 
the  arpeggios  and  trills  of  a  conservatory  of  music,  and  subsequent 
vapors  of  lodging-house  cooking  have  not  frightened  the  ghost  her 
self  away.  Go  and  see.  Far  and  down  in  the  old  quarter  of  New 
Orleans,  where  Hospital  Street  meets  Royal,  you  will  scarcely  hear  the 
drone  of  the  modern  city  at  work.  In  the  vieux  carrS  one  may  con 
verse  easily  with  ghosts.  You  will  find  no  answer  here. 


40 


DOUGHOREGAN   MANOR 


DOUGHOREGAN  MANOR 

YOU  may  come  up  a  long  straight  aisle  of  locust  trees,  or  you  may 
wind  through  Gothic  arches  of  elms  along  a  skilfully  engineered 
road  which  picks  its  way  through  the  estate  for  a  half-mile  or  more. 
Either  course  will  bring  you  before  a  wide  low  house  of  yellow  brick, 
with  green  blinds  and  white  woodwork  and  English  ivy.  Directly 
ahead  of  you,  across  the  circle  of  the  driveway,  the  square  main  section 
of  the  house,  capped  by  a  tower,  rises  above  a  bright  portico.  To  left 
and  right  the  house  throws  out  long  extensions  of  even  height,  ter 
minating  in  wings  set  endwise  to  you,  like  double-faces  in  the  game  of 
dominoes.  Your  first  impression  will  be  one  of  unusual  size,  your 
next  of  flatly  rectangular  simplicity.  Your  eye  will  be  caught  momen 
tarily  by  a  cross-tipped  bell-tower  of  the  right  wing,  where  Charles 
Carroll  built  the  only  private  chapel  in  America  because  England  would 
not  let  him  worship  in  peace.  You  will  know  that  you  have  never  seen 
such  a  house  in  America,  and  you  will  probably  not  suspect  that  it  is 
a  monument  to  several  great  Americans. 

A  lad  of  four  or  five  is  playing  on  the  grass  circle  of  the  driveway 
before  the  great  house.  The  undulating  Maryland  countryside  is  not 
half  as  absorbing  as  the  game  in  hand,  though  his  great-grandfather 
was  governor  of  all  those  miles.  If  you  were  to  ask  him  the  way  to 
Annapolis  he  would  probably  indicate  the  double  file  of  venerable 
trees  which  stand  sentinel  along  the  tapering  avenue,  smile  courte 
ously  if  you  thanked  him,  and  then  scurry  off  on  an  important  engage 
ment.  He  wouldn't  tell  you  that  in  his  grandfather's  great-grand- 

43 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

father's  day  Annapolis  was  the  national  capital,  nor  that  that  gentle 
man  was  one  of  the  bold  spirits  who  made  a  national  capital  possible. 

There  is  no  reason  why  he  should  know  of  it,  or  be  interested. 
If,  with  your  heavy  wisdom,  and  your  rhapsodies  on  the  pride  of  race, 
and  your  generally  affable  tourist  behavior  you  succeed  in  alarming 
the  lad  until  he  retreats  to  the  shelter  of  the  portico,  know,  stranger, 
that  you  have  aroused  the  suspicions  of  Charles  Carroll,  the  Ninth  in 
America,  and  the  seventh  heir  of  that  name  to  Doughoregan  Manor. 

Ancestors  can  be  lived  up  to  or  lived  down,  and  there  is  no  par 
ticular  point  or  prowess  in  bragging  about  them.  To  me  there  is 
glorious  romance  in  the  fact  that  this  youngster  of  five  is  romping  on 
the  ground  that  was  granted  to  his  ancestor  by  a  King  of  England. 
Perhaps  it  is  glorious  and  romantic  because  it  is  fact,  but  I  prefer  to 
believe  that  the  real  reason  may  be  found  in  a  verse  in  the  book  of  Ex 
odus,  which  reads: 

1  'Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother.'* 

They  were  worth  honoring;  they  have  been  duly  honored  even  unto  the 
eighth  and  ninth  generations. 

Charles  Carroll  the  First,  like  many  another  Irishman  since, 
went  west.  He  came  to  Baltimore  in  1688  with  the  ink  hardly  sanded 
on  his  commission  as  attorney-general  of  Maryland.  As  a  Roman 
Catholic  he  found  the  commission  suddenly  nullified  by  revolution  in 
England,  and  it  was  four  years  before  a  Royal  government  was  set  up 
in  the  colony  restoring  and  protecting  its  proprietary  rights.  His 
wife  had  died  childless  during  that  period,  and  he  married  again. 
Of  ten  children  of  his  second  wife,  the  eldest  died  on  the  voyage  home 
from  school  in  Europe.  Back  at  St.  Omer's  in  French  Flanders  he 
left  a  younger  brother,  Charles  Carroll  the  Second,  and  presently  the 
plodding  ships  bore  back  to  him  the  news  of  Henry's  death  and  the 

44 


DOUGHOREGAN   MANOR 

heritage  of  responsibility  and  affection  which  devolved  upon  him.  In 
1723  he  came  back  to  his  own  people,  married  in  his  turn,  and  in  1737 
Mistress  Elizabeth  Brooke  Carroll  bore  him  a  son.  The  precedent  for 
the  name  Charles  was  already  strong,  Charles  was  a  good  name,  and 
so  was  christened  Charles  Carroll  the  Third. 

In  the  archives  of  the  State  Department  at  Washington  you  will 
find  his  signature.  It  is  hidden  from  the  light,  but  reproductions  of  it 
and  the  pledge  to  which  it  is  attached  have  already  made  it  familiar  to 
every  American.  The  story  runs  that  in  the  congress  at  Philadelphia 
when  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  presented,  John  Hancock 
turned  to  Carroll  and  offering  him  a  quill,  asked  "Will  you  sign?" 

"Most  willingly,"  was  the  reply.  And  he  signed,  in  an  easy  clear 
hand,  with  less  flourish,  perhaps,  than  Franklin's  or  Hancock's,  but 
no  less  sincerity — and  Carroll,  the  richest  man  in  America,  had  more 
to  lose  than  either. 

"There  goes  two  millions  with  the  dash  of  a  pen!"  a  bystander 
remarked.  "Oh,  Carroll,  you  will  get  off,"  said  another.  "There  are 
so  many  Charles  Carrolls."  At  which  Charles  Carroll  Third  took  the 
pen  and  jabbed  "of  Carrollton"  under  his  signature,  that  George 
Third  of  England  might  make  no  mistake  and  punish  any  other  of  the 
same  name.  There  is  some  cherry-tree  flavor  in  the  story,  and  precious 
historians  maintain  that  he  invariably  signed  his  full  title;  but,  if  it 
can  accomplish  by  example  what  the  cherry-tree  fable  has  accom 
plished,  let  it  stand. 

What  circumstances  carried  this  patriot,  whom  we  left  a  moment 
ago  as  a  baby,  to  the  front  rank  of  his  country's  champions?  The 
best  of  schooling  then  was  to  be  had  abroad.  An  ardent  father  and 
mother  put  aside  their  fierce  attachment  to  their  only  child  in  order 
that  he  might  become  a  proper  heir  to  the  estate  which  Charles  Carroll 

45 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

the  Second  was  accumulating.  Just  as  the  young  Pinckneys  and 
Rutledges  and  Middletons  of  Charleston  in  pre-Revolutionary  days 
went  to  the  mother  country  for  their  cultural  training,  so  the  youths 
of  the  middle  states  whose  families  could  afford  the  excursion  were  dis 
patched  to  France,  or  England,  or  Flanders.  One  day  in  1748  saw 
Charles  Carroll,  a  boy  of  eleven,  take  ship  with  his  cousin  John  for 
Europe.  What  pangs  his  mother  experienced  at  the  loss  of  her  only 
chick  are  faintly  reflected  in  a  passage  from  the  correspondence  between 
the  two:  "You  are  always  at  heart  my  dear  Charley  and  I  have  never 
tired  of  asking  your  papa  questions  about  you.  I  daily  pray  to  God 
to  grant  you  his  grace  above  all  things,  and  to  take  you  under  his  pro 
tection.'*  'With  your  mother,"  his  father  wrote  in  1753,  "I  shall 
be  glad  to  have  your  likeness  in  the  compass  of  15  inches  by  12" — 
and  directed  him  to  have  the  specified  portrait  done  by  a  good  painter. 
But  the  mother  was  not  well,  and  in  1761,  when  the  baby  who  had 
sailed  away  was  a  grown  man,  a  student  of  Law  in  the  Temple  in  Lon 
don,  and  nearly  ready  to  return  to  the  warmth  of  his  mother's  adora 
tion,  she  died. 

Such  a  beau  as  he  would  have  made  her!  Heredity  gave  him  an 
active  mind  and  bearing  of  real  charm,  and  just  as  the  Manor  house 
back  in  Maryland  took  on  through  the  years  extensions  and  embellish 
ments  which  multiply  its  effect  of  useful  luxury,  so  each  addition  to 
Charles  Carroll's  intellect  only  seemed  to  make  him  more  companion 
able  and  genuinely  attractive.  Even  during  his  student  period  his 
sensitive  spirit  was  not  altogether  proof  against  affairs  of  the  heart, 
and  if  it  had  not  been  for  her  meddlesome  sister,  Miss  Louisa  Baker 
would  have  gone  back  to  Maryland  as  his  bride,  as  mistress  over 
68,000  acres.  Instead,  the  catch  of  the  commonwealth  returned  at 

twenty-nine  under  a  cloak  of  melancholy  from  the  shelter  of  which  he 

46 


DOUGHOREGAN   MANOR 

wrote,  dourly,  "Matrimony  is  at  present  but  little  the  subject  of  my 
thoughts." 

Persons  familiar  with  the  laws  of  gravity  and  more  particularly 
with  the  physics  of  the  rebounding  heart  will  not  be  surprised  to  learn 
that  within  a  few  months  he  was  again  engaged  to  be  married,  this 
time  to  Miss  Rachel  Cooke.  He  wrote  to  London  for  her  trousseau — 
such  intimate  finery  as  he  hardly  dared  describe,  things  to  turn  even 
the  Babylonian  fiancee  of  today  as  green  with  envy  as  the  Dougho- 
regan  meadows.  But  the  Brussels  lace  was  not  for  her,  for  Rachel 
Cooke  fell  ill  of  a  fever,  and  died,  and  her  miniature  and  a  lock  of  her 
tresses  were  hidden  away  in  a  secret  partition  of  Charles  Carroll's 
writing  desk. 

Undiscouraged,  he  found  serious  distraction  in  the  fermenting 
affairs  of  the  colonies.  From  provincial  grievances  such  as  his  father 
had  related  from  time  to  time  in  his  letters  dwelling  on  the  oppression 
of  the  rights  of  Catholics,  the  problems  of  the  colonists  had  overflowed 
greater  areas.  Like  a  flood  swelling  over  the  landscape,  the  minor 
swirls  of  flow  and  eddy  were  merged  into  a  common  misfortune  of 
drab  color  and  threatening  proportions.  It  was  Charles  Carroll's 
first  chance  for  constructive  citizenship.  At  the  writing-desk  where 
Rachel's  miniature  lay  hidden  he  wrote  a  program  of  letters  which  may 
be  said  to  constitute  the  brief  for  independence.  And  by  the  time  his 
heart  had  healed,  and  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  Miss  Mary  Darnell, 
whom  he  preferred,  he  said,  "to  all  the  women  I  have  ever  seen,  even  to 
Louisa,"  and  had  married  her,  he  was  caught  in  the  flood  himself. 
There  was  no  turning  back  even  if  he  wanted  to — and  he  did  not  want 
to  turn  back. 

His  town  house  at  Annapolis  and  the  manor  of  Doughoregan  (it 
is  pronounced  Doordygan,  and  it  means  the  house  of  the  king,  because 

47 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

a  thousand  years  or  so  ago  the  O'Carrolls  were  Irish  kings)  opened  their 
doors  with  special  welcome  to  those  who  were  prepared  to  resist  the 
oppression  of  a  king.  "A  warm,  firm,  zealous  supporter  of  the  rights 
of  America,  in  whose  cause  he  has  hazarded  his  all,"  wrote  John  Adams, 
Carroll's  "all"  at  that  time  yielding  an  income  of  some  ten  thousand 
pounds  a  year.  When,  in  1773,  an  outraged  importer  set  fire  to  his 
cargo  of  taxed  tea  in  Annapolis,  Charles  Carroll  was  his  chief  legal 
counsel.  When  the  Continental  Congress  met  in  Philadelphia  the 
next  year,  he  was  a  member.  When  the  Congress  sent  a  delegation  to 
Canada  to  enlist  support  for  the  Revolution,  it  seized  upon  his  French 
training  as  an  asset  in  Charles  Carroll,  as  it  chose  Benjamin  Franklin 
for  his  practical  judgment,  Father  John  Carroll  (later  the  first  Arch 
bishop  of  Baltimore)  for  his  ecclesiastical  influence,  and  Samuel  Chase 
for  his  legal  ability.  The  mission  failed;  Canada  would  not  help;  we 
must  work  alone.  So  to  indicate  that  he  welcomed  the  opportunity 
Charles  Carroll  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Years  later  he  wrote  this  summary  of  his  career: 

"On  the  breaking  out  of  the  Revolution  I  took  a  decided  part  in 
the  support  of  the  rights  of  this  country;  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
Committee  of  Safety  established  by  the  Legislature;  was  a  member  of 
the  Convention  which  formed  the  Constitution  of  the  State.  The 
Journals  of  Congress  show  how  long  I  was  a  member  of  that  body 
during  the  Revolution.  With  Dr.  Franklin  and  Mr.  Samuel  Chase  I 
was  appointed  a  Commissioner  to  Canada.  I  was  elected  a  member 
of  the  Senate  at  the  first  session  of  Congress  under  the  present  Con 
federation.  .  .  .  The  mode  of  choosing  the  Senate  was  suggested 
by  me.  .  .  ." 

That  was  all  he  found  to  write.     It  ought  to  be  enough  to  qualify 

him  for  the  emphasis  which,  in  the  eminent  line  of  Charles  Carrolls,  we 

48 


DOUGHOREGAN   MANOR 

have  placed  upon  him.  But  if,  after  you  have  followed  him  through  the 
Revolution,  you  inquire  just  what  connection  the  details  of  his  career 
have  with  Doughoregan  Manor,  listen  to  a  short  recital  of  what  he 
was  too  modest  to  write. 

In  1780  his  father,  Charles  the  Second,  was  standing  on  the  ver 
anda  of  his  Annapolis  house  and  peering  through  a  spy-glass  at  a  sail 
in  the  Bay.  He  made  a  misstep,  pitched  heavily  from  the  porch,  and 
was  killed.  Mary  Darnell  Carroll,  his  daughter-in-law,  saw  him  fall. 
Her  health,  already  taxed  by  her  devotion  to  Mrs.  Carroll  II  during 
her  last  illness,  gave  way  at  "Breakneck"  Carroll's  tragic  death,  and 
she  died  within  a  fortnight,  leaving  to  her  husband  a  son  and  two 
daughters.  The  son,  of  course,  was  Charles  Carroll  the  Fourth.  The 
Signer  saw  him  go  to  Li£ge  to  school,  return,  as  his  father  had  returned 
before  him,  the  idol  of  a  gay  countryside,  court  Nellie  Custis  at  Mount 
Vernon,  marry  Harriet  Chew  of  Cliveden,  and  rejoice  with  pride  at  the 
advent  in  1801  of  Charles  Carroll  the  Fifth. 

Charles  the  Fourth,  of  Homewood,  has  been  described  by  a  con 
temporary  as  follows:  * 'Nothing  in  Greek  art  surpasses  the  perfect 
symmetry  of  his  figure."  No  less  a  person  than  Washington  had 
asked  Harriet  Chew  to  remain  in  his  presence  while  he  sat  for  his  por 
trait  to  Gilbert  Stuart  in  order  that  his  own  face  might  "wear  its 
most  agreeable  expression."  Therefore  if  the  baby  Charles  the  Fifth 
was  not  handsome  it  was  neither  the  fault  of  his  parents  nor  of  the 
distinguished  grandfather  who  immediately  became  his  devoted  slave. 

The  concerns  of  the  estate,  and  the  larger  questions  of  the  nation, 
had  the  Signer's  first  attention.  His  avocations  were  to  ride  his  lanes 
and  woodland,  to  read  Greek  and  Latin  in  the  original — he  was  read 
ing  Cicero's  "De  Senectute"  at  ninety- three;  to  preside  over  a  growing 
flock  of  grandchildren  at  Homewood  with  his  son,  at  Brooklandwood, 

49 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

where  Mary  Carroll  Caton  was  bringing  up  the  three  stunning  daugh 
ters  whom  society  called  the  " American  Graces";  and  to  spend  much 
time  in  the  company  of  his  daughter  Kitty's  husband,  Robert  Goodloe 
Harper.  From  time  to  time  he  was  called  upon  to  step  into  his  earlier 
character  as  Signer.  In  1824  he  was  invited,  with  Jefferson  and 
Madison,  the  only  survivors  of  that  great  company  who  fixed  their 
names  to  the  Declaration,  to  attend  the  anniversary  of  the  surrender 
of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown.  His  age  forced  him  to  decline,  but  he 
compromised  by  meeting  Lafayette  at  Fort  McHenry  and  lunching 
with  him  in  a  tent  which  had  been  Washington's,  and  by  attending  a 
ball  given  in  Lafayette's  honor  at  Colonel  Howard's  "Belvedere." 

Few  men  of  eighty-seven  have  shown  such  activity  as  was  his; 
most  men  of  his  years  would  have  given  way  to  the  misfortunes  which 
now  trooped  out  of  the  shadows.  Charles  Carroll  the  Fourth  died; 
General  Harper,  the  beloved  son-in-law,  followed.  In  the  next  year 
John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson  died  on  the  same  day,  and  it  was 
the  sad  duty  of  Charles  the  Third  to  mourn  at  their  funeral.  He  was 
now  the  last  of  the  Signers.  At  eighty-nine  he  signed  a  copy  of  the 
Declaration  which  is  now  held  in  the  New  York  Public  Library — and 
signed  it  in  a  handwriting  as  firm  as  it  had  been  fifty  years  before;  at 
ninety  he  laid  the  foundation  stone  of  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad; 
at  ninety-three  the  cornerstone  of  St.  Charles'  College,  near  Dougho- 
regan  Manor.  And  by  this  time  the  patriarch  had  seen  born  into  his 
grandson's  family  a  sixth  Charles  Carroll. 

There  are  three  ghosts  at  Doughoregan  Manor.  One  is  the  shade 
of  an  ancient  housekeeper,  whose  quiet  tread  may  be  heard  in  the 
corridors,  and  whose  keys  tinkle  faintly  when  the  house  is  still.  An 
other  is  the  spectral  coach — its  wheels  grind  on  the  driveway  when  death 
rides  to  claim  a  member  of  the  household — the  coach  which  swung  up 

So 


DOUGHOREGAN   MANOR 

to  the  door  on  a  still  November  day  in  1832  when  the  Signer  went  to 
join  his  fathers.  It  is  hardly  dignified  to  call  the  third  a  ghost.  A 
warm,  lively,  pervading  spirit  it  is — that  of  the  Signer  himself,  smiling 
down  from  his  portrait  on  the  walls.  It  beamed  on  Charles  the  Sixth 
through  a  long  and  active  life  until  it  beckoned  to  him  in  1895.  To 
the  son  of  Charles  Carroll  VI,  John  Lee  Carroll,  it  nodded:  "Well 
done,  my  boy,"  when  he  became  Governor  of  Maryland,  and  to  the 
seventh  Charles  it  told  again  all  that  its  cumulative  history  could 
convey  of  the  philosophical  guidance  and  binding  parental  attach 
ment  that  has  made  Doughoregan  Manor  something  more  than  a 
home.  Charles  Bancroft  Carroll,  the  Eighth,  ' 'carries  on"  and  injects 
typical  enthusiasm  into  farming  twenty-four  hundred  acres  of  the 
grant  you  will  see  in  the  hall  on  a  map  the  first  Charles  Carroll 
drew. 

You  will  feel  the  spirit  strongly  as  you  contemplate  the  Signer's 
place  of  burial  in  the  chapel  where  the  countryside  gathers  each  Sunday 
for  services.  You  will  sense  the  alliance  between  devotion  to  God  and 
to  profoundly  national  ideals,  and  recall  the  sympathetic  correspond 
ence  between  the  Signer  and  his  father,  as  you  enter  the  Cardinal's 
room,  a  gorgeous  chamber  decorated  in  red,  containing  a  great  mahog 
any  bed  where  Cardinal  Gibbons,  Archbishop  John  Carroll,  and  the 
Marquis  de  Lafayette  have  slept.  In  a  mellow  library  are  the  books 
he  read.  Trophies  over  the  door  of  a  panelled  dining-room,  cups  won 
at  yachting,  a  friendly  hound  from  the  present  master's  hunting  pack 
at  your  feet — remember  that  the  Signer  believed  that  a  clear  mind  was 
most  likely  to  be  found  in  a  sound  body.  We  may  fairly  conceive  that 
when  the  house  was  to  be  renovated,  as  it  has  been  four  times  in  its 
history,  the  Signer  laid  a  gentle  hand  upon  the  sleeve  of  the  workmen 
and  cautioned  them  so:  "Paint,  if  you  like.  Replace,  where  the  old 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

has  given  all  its  service.  But  remember,  sirs,  this  is  and  must  be  a 
home."  And  in  the  fullest  connotation  of  the  word,  it  is  a  home, 
with  old  chairs  to  fit  you,  bright  cretonnes  at  the  windows,  and  friendly 
things  about  you  to  rest  your  eyes  upon — the  sort  of  a  home  that  a  lad 
like  Charles  Carroll  the  Ninth,  who  isn't  much  interested  in  ancestors, 
likes  to  take  refuge  in  when  strangers  grow  inquisitive. 


THE  JUMEL  MANSION 


THE  JUMEL  MANSION 

A  LITTLE  over  a  hundred  years  have  passed.  Much  sea- water  has 
pressed  up  the  Harlem  on  the  incoming  tide,  boiled  and  eddied 
in  the  narrow  pass  of  Spuyten  Duyvil,  and  slipped  away  again  to  the 
Atlantic,  diluted  by  the  contribution  of  mountain  streams  in  the 
Catskills  and  Adirondacks,  tainted  by  the  factory  waste  of  busy  cities 
up  the  Hudson  and  the  Mohawk.  Men  threw  giant  bridges  across 
its  ebb  and  flow,  tunneled  under  its  current,  bit  and  blasted  and 
scratched  at  its  Hell  Gate  channel.  The  placid,  austere  heights  that 
stood  above  the  stream  "nine  miles  from  New  York  City"  bear  now 
the  unromantic  name  of  Coogan's  Bluff,  and  are  as  many  miles  within 
the  city's  northern  limits. 

The  camera  had  not  been  invented  when  Roger  Morris  built  the 
house  for  his  young  wife.  To  the  westward,  where  his  acreage  touched 
the  Hudson,  apartment  houses  have  risen  and  cut  off  the  Palisades; 
to  the  south,  where  once  he  could  see  far  down  Staten  Island,  a 
tangle  of  bridges  and  shipping  is  half  screened  by  the  battlements 
of  more  apartment  buildings;  only  to  the  east  and  north,  over  the  sunny 
throat  of  the  Sound  and  the  far  blue  profile  of  the  Long  Island  hills, 
has  the  prospect  its  former  grand,  pure  simplicity.  A  fan  of  railway 
tracks  are  at  the  Harlem  where  once  was  "Fishing,  Oystering  and 
Clamming,"  and  from  the  very  skirts  of  the  estate  rises  each  afternoon 
the  roar  of  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  "busy  Americans"  who  are 
totally  unoccupied  except  with  the  baseball  game  in  process  on  the 
Polo  Grounds. 

55 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

It  is  hard,  without  photographic  record,  to  reconstruct  the  pic 
ture.  Alone  in  its  brittle  modern  neighborhood  this  lovely  anachron 
ism  is  the  only  fragment  of  the  composition  left  to  us.  It  stands  on 
the  highest  point  of  York  Island,  untroubled,  unruffled,  and  for  the 
most  part  undisturbed,  except  by  Sunday  idlers  to  whom  its  orchards 
are  just  another  breathing  spot. 

It  may  be  unjust  to  the  Jumel  Mansion  to  compare  it  with  the 
lady  in  one  of  Leonard  Merrick's  stories  who  "had  outgrown  her  sins, 
but  remembered  them  with  pleasure,"  but  the  spirit  of  Madame 
Jumel  haunts  the  air  so  persistently  that  the  suggestion  is  not  alto 
gether  out  of  place.  Despite  the  fact  that  when  the  British  were 
advancing  across  Long  Island  in  1776  it  was  General  Heath's  head 
quarters,  that  it  housed  Washington  for  six  weeks,  and  that  fifteen 
minutes  after  he  had  left  it  on  the  day  Fort  Washington  was  taken 
General  Howe  established  his  own  headquarters  there — despite  its 
standing  as  one  of  the  smartest  suburban  estates  of  Colonial  New  York, 
the  house  will  never  be  forgotten  as  the  home  of  a  person  of  no  military 
or  aristocratic  consequence,  yet  a  person  of  caprice  and  beauty,  ambi 
tion  and  impropriety,  common  sense  and  eccentricity.  She  was  no 
sort  of  person  to  talk  about,  and  therefore  talked  about;  a  kaleido 
scopic  contradiction — in  short,  a  woman. 

Though  General  Washington  probably  never  heard  of  the  lady, 
the  house  which  she  occupied  was  strangely  related  to  important 
moments  in  his  own  career.  When  he  was  an  athletic  officer  of 
twenty-five,  neither  Betsy  Bowen  nor  her  mother,  Phebe  Kelly  of 
Providence,  knew  of  him  or  cared  about  him,  for  they  were  both  yet 
unborn.  Of  his  restrained  sentimental  interest  for  Polly  Philipse,  the 
Yonkers  heiress,  they  could  not  know,  nor  had  they  comment  to  offer 
when  Colonel  Roger  Morris,  a  gallant  of  the  colonial  forces,  crowded 

56 


THE      JUMEL      MANSION 


the  young  Virginian  out  of  her  affections  and  married  her.  In  1760 
when  Washington  himself  married  Martha  Custis,  Phebe  Kelly  was 
three  years  old;  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  in  the  same  month  when  Wash 
ington  was  appointed  commander-in-chief  of  the  American  army  and 
rode  to  its  head  at  Cambridge,  Phebe  Kelly  Bowen  of  Providence  gave 
birth  to  her  second  daughter,  and  called  her  Betsy. 

Ten  years  before,  Roger  Morris  had  built  a  lovely  house  for  his 
wife  and  their  growing  family  on  the  topmost  point  of  Manhattan; 
the  wailing  baby  in  Providence  in  that  turbulent  July,  1775,  scarcely 
suspected  that  one  day  she  would  be  the  mistress  of  that  house,  or 
that  a  month  ago  Roger  Morris,  a  Tory,  too  peaceful  to  fight,  had 
fled  to  England  for  refuge.  But  there  began  the  chain  of  events 
which  finally  landed  his  estate  in  Betsy  Bowen's  hands. 

The  city  of  Providence  was  so  named  because  its  founders  had 

supreme  confidence  in  its  namesake.     With  the  advent  of  a  pathetic 

i 

little  atom  of  humanity  called  Betsy  Bowen,  Providence  the  power, 
through  the  agency  of  Providence  the  city,  undertook  to  show  off. 
"Her  father  was  a  seafaring  man  of  no  account;  her  mother  of  less," 
said  the  town.  "It  looks  bad.  It  probably  is.  If  not,  it  ought  to 
be.  In  any  case,  Providence  shall  be  appeased."  Betsy's  mother  was 
presently  arrested  and  thrown  in  jail,  and  Betsy,  with  her  sister  Polly, 
then  a  child  of  fourteen,  was  first  locked  up  in  the  workhouse  and  later 
sent  to  live  with  a  more  respectable  family.  John  Bowen,  the  father, 
was  knocked  overboard  by  the  boom  of  a  sloop  and  drowned;  his  widow 
and  her  second  husband  were  allowed  out  of  jail  long  enough  to  be 
ordered  out  of  town;  they  returned  and  were  shortly  expelled  at  the 
expense  of  the  town,  to  carry  on  a  wretched  existence  in  a  hut  on  the 
Old  Warren  Road.  As  the  daughters  matured  they  moved  to  a  less 
respectable  family.  In  1794  a  son  was  born  to  Betsy  Bowen,  and  its 

57 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

father's  name  being  either  unknown,  undesirable  or  Jones,  the  baby 
was  christened  George  Washington  Bowen.  Three  years  later  her 
mother  and  her  step-father,  once  more  expelled  from  Providence,  made 
their  way  to  the  North  Carolina  mountains,  got  sufficiently  acquainted 
with  their  neighbors  to  start  a  lawsuit,  and  then  were  shot  by  a  squirrel 
rifle  in  the  hands  of  one  or  more  of  the  defendants.  Providence  the 
town  had  forgotten  them,  Providence  the  power  had  accomplished  a 
tour  de  force. 

The  divine  lightnings  were  apparently  spent.  Betsy  Bowen  left 
her  baby  in  the  hands  of  a  friend  and  fled  from  the  mockery  of  her 
native  city.  She  began  six  obscure  years  of  adventure  as  Betsy  Bowen, 
reappeared  in  New  York  for  a  fleeting  glimpse  as  Madame  De  la 
Croix,  and  emerged  as  Eliza  Brown,  the  mistress  of  the  wealthy  Stephen 
Jumel.  From  1800  to  1804  she  occupied  this  prosperous  French  mer 
chant's  house  at  the  corner  of  Whitehall  and  Pearl  Streets,  near  the 
lower  tip  of  Manhattan.  He  came  home  one  day  to  find  her  apparently 
on  her  death  bed,  explaining  faintly,  through  the  medium  of  her 
physician,  that  she  wanted  nothing  more  than  to  leave  a  sorry  world 
as  his  wife.  To  Jumel,  who  was  deeply  touched,  it  was  an  irresistible 
appeal,  and  the  clergyman  who  had  come  to  pray  for  her  married  the 
pair.  No  hypodermic  has  since  been  discovered  by  a  vaulting  med 
ical  science  which  ever  had  such  magical  powers  of  restoration,  for 
two  days  later  Betsy  Bowen-de  la  Croix-Brown-Jumel  was  riding  out 
behind  Stephen  Jumel's  smart  horses  as  Stephen  Jumel's  lawful,  glee 
ful,  wedded  wife.  Her  program,  after  a  bad  start,  was  fairly  begun. 

She  craved  social  prominence.  She  wanted  to  hob-nob  with  such 
folk  as  the  Philipses,  the  rich  Astors,  the  Van  Cortlandts,  the  Lows, 
and  the  Livingstons,  none  of  whom  would  have  much  to  do  with  her. 
The  leverage  of  owning  one  of  the  great  estates  evidently  did  not  occur 

58 


THE      JUMEL      MANSION 

to  her  just  yet,  though  there  was  one  to  be  had.  In  a  letter  from 
Aaron  Burr  to  his  daughter  Theodosia,  then  married  and  living  in  the 
Pringle  house  in  Charleston,  he  wrote:  ' 'Roger  Morris's  place,  the  large 
handsome  house  on  the  height  beyond  Mrs.  Watkins,  is  for  sale.  I  can 
get  it  for  Richmond  Hill  with  four  acres.  Shall  I  exchange?  R.  M.'s 
has  one  hundred  and  thirty  acres.  If  I  leave  Richmond  Hill,  however, 
had  I  not  better  buy  in  town,  that  you  may  have  a  resting  place  here?" 

He  evidently  rejected  the  idea.  He  could  not  foresee  that  within 
a  few  months  he  would  retire  from  the  vice-presidency  of  the  United 
States,  bully  Alexander  Hamilton  into  a  duel  on  the  Palisades,  kill 
him;  nor  that  he  would  then  organize  an  invasion  of  Mexico  and  a 
revolution  in  the  new  Louisiana  Purchase  only  to  be  caught  in  the  act 
and  be  tried  for  treason;  nor  that  the  year  1810  would  find  him  abroad, 
disgraced,  and  still  plotting  to  capture  Mexico. 

In  that  year  Stephen  Jumel,  who  had  taken  his  wife's  trick-mar 
riage  in  good  part,  bought  the  Roger  Morris  house  and  transferred 
his  family  to  the  heights,  to  install  his  wife  in  a  style  of  living  to  which 
she  hoped  to  become  accustomed.  Nothing  was  nearer  her  heart  than 
the  social  prestige  which  her  position  as  the  chatelaine  of  a  fine  estate 
would  afford,  nothing  farther  from  her  mind  than  a  lonesome  ex- 
vice-president  who  had  once  speculated  on  buying  this  very  house. 
The  God  of  Coincidence  made  a  mental  note  of  this,  and  laid  his  plans. 

Although  frequent  changes  of  ownership  and  lack  of  care  had 
tarnished  the  house,  it  was  intrinsically  the  same  fine  honest  mansion 
that  Roger  Morris  built,  with  two-foot  outer  walls  lined  with  English 
brick,  and  supporting  timbers  of  enduring  oak.  Madame  Jumel 
entered  her  new  home  through  a  lofty  portico  to  a  main  hall  which  runs 
through  the  center  of  the  building  from  front  to  rear.  This  hall  leads, 
as  at  Monticello,  to  an  octagonal  annex  which  is  the  only  departure 

59 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

from  a  rather  simple  Georgian  plan.  To  her  left  a  reception  room,  to 
her  right  the  dining-room,  ahead  in  the  octagon,  a  drawing-room  which 
commanded  nearly  the  full  circle  of  that  far-reaching  panorama.  Here 
had  been  held  the  Revolutionary  courts-martial.  The  room  north 
of  the  reception  room  had  been  the  commander-in-chief s  office;  the 
southeast  bedroom  had  been  his,  and  from  its  window  he  could  see  the 
smoking  embers  of  the  fire  set  by  his  troops  when  they  evacuated  the 
city  in  '76 — the  night  Nathan  Hale  was  caught  there  as  a  spy. 

With  Roger  Morris  a  fugitive  in  London  and  the  house  in  de 
batable  ground,  Polly  Philipse  Morris  had  resorted  to  the  Manor  at 
Yonkers  for  safety.  When  Washington  was  driven  out,  and  the  house 
became  British  headquarters,  the  army  paid  rent,  but  when  the  Revo 
lution  ended,  the  families  of  Morris  and  Philipse,  their  properties  con 
fiscated,  went  back  to  England.  The  mansion  was  sold  and  resold, 
but  no  one  held  it  for  long.  It  failed  as  a  tavern,  and  was  doubtless 
expensive  to  run  as  a  home. 

Jumel  was  a  great  admirer  of  Washington,  as  well  as  a  man  of 
taste,  and  he  combined  the  two  qualities  to  restore  the  house  implicitly 
to  its  earlier  condition.  It  meant  a  lot  to  him  that  Washington,  the 
president,  had  dined  a  brilliant  company  there  in  1790,  when  New 
York  was  the  national  capital,  and  he  equipped  the  room  with  fine 
furniture  brought  from  France  in  one  of  his  packets.  He  had  the  wall 
paper  in  the  octagon  copied  and  rehung,  respected  the  simplicity  of  the 
mantels,  and  chose  his  decorative  "remarks"  with  a  nice  eye.  When 
his  work  was  done  we  may  fancy  that  he  rubbed  his  hands  and  said  to 
his  pretty  wife:  "Voild!  A  house  worthy  of  its  guests.  Let  them 
come,  my  dear." 

They  didn't  come.     Everything  domestic  a  woman  could  crave 

Betsy  Jumel  had,  even  the  company  of  her  step-sister's  little  daughter, 

60 


THE      JUMEL      MANSION 

to  take  the  part  of  the  daughter  she  never  had.  It  was  not  enough. 
Five  years  of  it  made  her  despise  the  place.  So  the  Jumels  packed  up 
and  sailed  for  France. 

It  was  no  expeditionary  force  against  a  new  stronghold  of  society, 
but  an  innocent  visit  to  relatives,  and  perhaps  that  is  why  her  luck 
turned.  Family  tradition  has  it  that  in  Bordeaux  they  met  the 
fleeing  Napoleon,  and  offered  him  the  Jumel  ship.  In  return  he  gave 
them  his  carriage,  for  which  he  had  no  further  use,  and  they  drove  in 
it  to  Paris. 

Such  credentials  opened  every  door  of  the  Bonapartist  royalty. 
Everything  Madame  Jumel  would  have  wished  to  be  in  New  York 
she  became  in  Paris — a  turn  of  fortune  which  has  come  to  many  a 
socially  ambitious  American  woman  since.  New  avenues  of  associa 
tion  opened,  and  she  tried  to  cajole  Louis  XVIII  into  giving  Stephen  a 
title.  What  Stephen  would  have  liked  better  was  money  for  two 
ships  the  French  government  stole  from  him,  for  the  demands  of  his 
expensive  establishment  in  the  Place  Vendome  and  a  few  strokes  of  ill 
luck  in  trading  were  reducing  his  funds.  When  his  position  grew  em 
barrassing  his  wife  left  him  and  returned  to  New  York. 

Two  years  later — in  1828 — Stephen  Jumel  followed  her.  Dark 
rumor  says  that  it  was  very  late  when  he  drove  out  from  town,  and  that 
as  he  approached  the  mansion  he  passed  Aaron  Burr,  who  was  leaving 
it.  He  entered,  and  found  that  his  wife,  with  the  expert  legal  assist 
ance  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  Jr.,  had  transferred  the  propery  from  her 
name  to  his.  Four  years  later  he  fell  from  a  hay-cart,  and  in  a  few 
days  died  of  his  injuries,  and  whoever  took  the  bandage  off  those  in-' 
juries  and  let  him  bleed  to  death  will  answer  for  that  crime  elsewhere, 
for  it  is  not  known  in  this  world. 

On  a  midsummer  night  of  1833,  presided  over  by  the  God  of 

61 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

Coincidence,  Aaron  Burr  came  to  the  mansion  to  play  whist  with  the 
widow.  "Madame,"  he  said,  "I  offer  you  my  hand;  my  heart  has  long 
been  yours."  If  you  will  believe  her  own  version  of  this  proposal  from 
a  veteran  of  seventy-eight,  she  made  no  reply.  He  came  the  next 
night,  with  a  priest.  She  fled  upstairs.  He  overtook  her  at  the  land 
ing,  "saying  the  priest  was  old,  and  it  was  nearly  midnight,  and  I  must 
not  detain  him — and  he  was  so  handsome  and  brave  and  I  allowed 
him  to  keep  my  hand  and  I  stood  up  there  .  .  .  and  like  a  fool 
was  married  to  him!  The  wretch,  but  he  did  not  stay  here  long." 

A  few  days  he  stayed,  and  left  her,  after  a  wedding  trip  in  the 
course  of  which  she  sold  some  stock  in  Hartford  and  scornfully  bade 
the  purchaser  "pay  the  money  to  my  husband."  Months  later  he 
was  persuaded  to  rejoin  her,  but  it  could  not  last.  A  divorce  ensued, 
and  Aaron  Burr  died. 

There  really  ends  the  career  of  Madame  Jumel.  But  she  lived 
through  the  Mexican  and  the  Civil  wars.  Here  and  there  in  the 
city,  now  at  Saratoga,  once  in  Europe,  she  "lived  around"  with  rela 
tives  of  sorts,  but  most  of  the  time  she  spent  in  the  great  house.  Its 
corners  grew  less  and  less  neat  as  age  crept  over  her.  Still,  however, 
the  active  physique  her  sea-faring  father  and  her  tomboy  mother  had 
given  little  Betsy  Bowen  held  on  grimly  to  life  and  activity,  and  the 
social  mania  which  had  consumed  her  thoughts  lighted  up  her  memory 
with  fantasies,  as  a  sputtering  lantern  creates  half-authentic  figures 
among  the  shadows  of  a  dusty,  neglected  stage.  Outside  the  house 
she  had  no  friends  except  those  who  wanted  her  money  or  stole  her 
firewood  and  livestock,  indoors  life  was  a  perpetual  pageant.  For 
twenty  years  a  feast  table,  fully  set,  with  dust  in  the  crystal  wine  glasses, 
and  mould  on  the  petrifying  candies,  stood  in  a  closed  room:  this,  she 

related,  was  the  table  at  which  she  had  entertained  Joseph  Bonaparte 

62 


THE      JUMEL      MANSION 

when  he  came  over  to  marry  her  and  her  riches  and  had  to  climb  over 
'the  back  wall  to  gain  entrance.  She  took  pity  on  him  then,  she  said, 
for  it  didn't  look  just  right  to  have  the  King  of  Spain  in  the  kitchen. 
The  truth  is  that  she  never  entertained  Joseph  Bonaparte  (though  she 
offered  him  the  estate  in  1820);  nor  did  the  Duke  of  Palermo  offer  to 
marry  the  "Vice-Queen  of  America"  as  she  styled  herself  (although  she 
inspected  the  ducal  palace  in  Palermo) ;  she  was  in  Paris  when  Lafayette 
visited  America  in  1825,  but  she  honestly  believed  that  she  had  been 
his  hostess  on  the  Heights.  Some  recollection  of  a  name,  a  face,  a 
romantic  anecdote  out  of  her  vivid  past  popped  up,  or  she  ran  across 
one  of  the  dingy,  pathetic  dance  favors  or  trinkets  or  ribbons  of  a  dead 
affair,  and  presto! — her  feverish  mind  whirled  away  in  a  jumbled  drama, 
unlimited  in  its  romantic  action,  and  delicious  in  its  inaccuracy. 

If  the  public  saw  her  it  was  under  circumstances  that  magnified 
all  the  erratic  tales  that  were — and  still  are — current  about  her  history. 
One  winter  she  took  a  group  of  penniless  Frenchmen  under  her  wing, 
quartered  them  in  the  barn,  which  had  once  held  American  prisoners, 
armed  them  from  the  arsenal  she  kept  in  the  house,  organized  them 
into  a  military  outfit,  and  would  ride  proudly  at  their  head  over  her 
estate.  From  France  she  brought  home  green  livery  for  her  postilions 
— though  she  had  no  postilions,  and  when  taunting  reached  her  ears 
she  dressed  the  gardener  and  his  boy  in  the  livery  and  rode  to  town  with 
them.  Her  face  to  the  world  was  as  haughty  and  as  tinctured  with 
rouge  as  if  she  were  Eliza  Brown  of  Whitehall  Street,  her  dress  as 
shabby-genteel  as  she  fancied  it  was  fashionable,  her  intellect  as  trag 
ically  aflame  with  the  mad  dance  of  Might-Have-Been  as  it  was  fixed, 
cold,  and  shrewd  in  financial  matters.  Grande  dame  she  had  set  out 
to  be,  grande  dame  she  had  become,  and  mercifully  to  the  poor  little 
shrunken  creature  with  the  powdered  cheeks  and  the  soiled  finery  who 

63 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

was  finally  carried  upstairs  to  the  Washington  room  to  die,  grande 
dame  in  her  mind  she  died. 

It  was  a  signal  for  the  jackals.  No  less  than  twenty  law-suits 
sprang  up  to  break  the  will  and  seize  the  property.  Some  of  the 
claims  seem  just,  others  less  so,  and  all  of  them,  in  the  course  of  fifty 
years,  have  gone  through  the  mill  of  the  courts  and  been  ground  ex 
ceeding  fine.  Of  them  all,  the  most  interesting  fragment  is  the  attempt 
made  by  George  Washington  Bowen,  Betsy's  deserted  baby  in  Provi 
dence,  to  own  his  mother's  home.  For  thirteen  years  the  old  man 
pursued  his  case,  even  to  the  Supreme  Court,  lost  it,  and  died,  though 
the  claim  is  still  cherished  by  his  own  connections.  The  estate  could 
not  hold  out  long  against  the  march  of  the  city,  and  parcel  by  parcel 
it  was  split  up,  until  in  1894  the  house  and  its  dooryard  came  into  the 
hands  of  General  F.  P.  Earle. 

The  city  owns  it  now,  and  four  capable  chapters  of  the  Daughters 
of  the  American  Revolution  have  formed  the  Washington  Headquarters 
Association,  and  have  brought  the  mansion  out  of  neglect  and  oblivion. 
They  opened  the  windows  Madame  Jumel  kept  sealed  and  let  in  air 
and  sunlight;  they  consigned  the  Eastlake-and-gimcrack  whatnottery 
of  its  most  recent  tenants  to  the  exceedingly  efficent  ash-removal  de 
partment  of  the  City  of  New  York,  which  is  equipped  to  handle  just 
such  situations,  and  from  the  four  corners  of  our  country  they  assem 
bled  and  installed  in  the  house  as  much  of  its  historic  equipment  as 
they  could  find.  There  is  much  of  it,  of  course,  which  has  no  special 
significance,  and  there  is  so  great  a  quantity  of  relics  there  that  the 
house  is  in  no  sense  a  home,  but  rather  an  interesting  and  valuable 
museum.  Next  best  of  all,  they  opened  the  doors  to  the  public  in  a 
city  where  sorely-needed  Americanization  may  well  begin  at  home. 

And  best  of  all,  they  installed  as  curator  William  Henry  Shelton,  as 

64 


THE      JUMEL      MANSION 

gracious  a  story-teller  as  the  humble  history-seeker  may  ply  with 
questions.  It  is  to  him  largely  that  the  excellent  administration  of 
the  house  is  due.  It  is  he  who  can  bid  you  close  your  eyes,  make  a  few 
passes,  and  translate  you  into  the  presence  of  Mary  Philipse,  or  bring 
you  to  attention  before  George  Washington,  or  open  a  secret  panel 
that  you  may  peep  at  Madame  Jumel.  In  his  book,  "The  Jumel 
Mansion,"  he  has  done  just  this,  and  it  is  from  that  source  with  his 
permission  that  the  greater  part  of  this  story  is  drawn,  and  so,  grate 
fully  acknowledged. 


MOUNT  VERNON 


MOUNT  VERNON 

THE  First  President  once  wrote  a  letter  to  a  Charleston  gentleman 
named  Thomas  Pinckney,  who  was  then  American  ambassador 
at  the  British  court.  His  words  were  for  Thomas  Pinckney,  not  for 
posterity,  so  posterity  finds  it  refreshing  to  see  a  president  writing  a 
specific  letter  to  his  envoy  under  the  pitiless  light  of  publicity.  Its 
chief  interest  here  is  not  his  report  of  the  Senate's  action  on  a  proposed 
treaty  with  Great  Britain,  nor  his  anxiety  over  Lafayette's  imprison 
ment  in  Olmutz,  though  both  are  subjects  upon  which  he  dwells  at 
some  length.  The  note  for  us  is  the  fact  that  after  long  diplomatic 
instruction  to  his  ambassador,  Washington  says: 

"  Before  I  close  this  letter  permit  me  to  request  the 
favour  of  you  to  embrace  some  favorable  opportunity  to 
thank  Lord  Grenville  in  my  behalf,  for  his  politeness  in 
causing  a  special  permit  to  be  sent  to  Liverpool  for  the  ship 
ment  of  two  sacks  of  the  field  peas,  and  the  like  quantity  of 
winter  vetches,  which  I  had  requested  our  Consul  at  that 
place  to  send  me  for  seed,  but  which  it  seems  cannot  be  done 
without  a  special  order  from  Government.  A  circumstance 
which  did  not  occur  to  me,  or  I  certainly  should  not  have 
given  it  the  trouble  of  issuing  one  for  such  a  trifle. 
"With  very  great  esteem  and  regard 
"I  am,  dear  Sir, 

"Your  obedt.  Servant, 

"G.  Washington." 
69 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

A  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  Lafayette  to  be  got  out  of  prison, 
two  sacks  of  field  peas  and  some  winter  vetch — and  there  is  George 
Washington.  Our  national  heroes  march  down  the  ages  without  time 
to  change  costumes.  While  they  live  we  call  them  everything  under 
the  sun;  they  die,  and  we  endow  them  with  a  certain  type-quality 
which  they  must  wear  forever  to  the  exclusion  of  other  and  equally 
interesting  qualities  which  they  possessed  in  equal  quantity.  Unless 
some  circumstance  rescue  those  qualities  from  oblivion,  a  large  part 
of  the  inspiration  of  their  lives  has  been  unnecessarily  sacrificed.  We 
have  seen  the  first  manifestation  of  such  a  process  with  the  death  of 
Colonel  Roosevelt,  and  we  wonder  how  frequently  our  children's  chil 
dren  will  think  of  Roosevelt  on  the  tennis-court,  at  Sagamore,  in 
Montana,  in  Rock  Creek  Park,  or  facing  death  in  Brazil.  The  nation 
loses  a  man,  to  mourn  a  saint.  So  in  a  lesser  degree  with  our  lesser 
heroes:  Hale  becomes  the  lay-figure  of  Loyalty,  Franklin,  of  Common 
Sense,  Grant,  of  Military  Patience.  Here,  on  a  hill  in  Fairfax  County, 
Virginia,  in  and  about  a  great  white  house,  we  may  catch  glimpses  of 
the  man  George  Washington  liked  to  be — glimpses  denied  us  in  the 
popular  Washington  legend. 

He  was  a  boy  of  three  when  his  father  first  brought  him  there. 
He  was  seven  when  his  father's  house  burned,  and  the  discouragement 
and  loneliness  of  the  wilderness  plantation  on  the  Potomac  sent  the 
young  family  to  Fredericksburg  to  live.  He  was  fifteen  when  he  came 
back  to  live  on  the  Potomac  estate,  now  the  property  of  his  brother 
Lawrence.  Lawrence  was  of  no  mean  importance  in  his  young  brother's 
eye — a  veteran  of  the  West  Indian  naval  exploits  of  Admiral  Vernon, 
and  so  full  of  them  that  he  named  the  estate  after  his  chief — alto 
gether  a  rare  big  brother.  And  there  were  rare  neighbors  to  be  culti 
vated:  like  Lord  Fairfax,  an  Oxford  graduate  and  contributor  to  Mr. 

7° 


MOUNT      VERNON 


Addison's  Spectator,  who  took  a  fellow  riding,  and  now  and  then  rode 
after  a  fox. 

As  the  boy  broadened  into  self-reliance  in  such  company  as 
Lawrence's,  and  into  a  degree  of  education  by  association  with  Fair 
fax,  he  fell  heir  to  certain  of  their  responsibilities.  Fairfax  sent 
him  to  survey  his  vast  holdings.  Lawrence  developed  tubercu 
losis,  and  his  military  duties  devolved  upon  George.  At  twenty  he 
was  master  of  Mount  Vernon,  at  twenty-one  a  lieutenant-colonel 
and  fighting  for  the  English  against  the  French  on  the  Ohio. 
Thackeray  has  pointed,  in  this  episode,  the  caprice  of  fate:  "It  was 
strange  that  in  a  savage  forest  of  Pennsylvania  a  young  Virginian  officer 
should  fire  a  shot  and  waken  up  a  war  which  was  to  last  for  sixty  years, 
which  was  to  cover  his  own  country  and  pass  into  Europe,  to  cost 
France  her  American  colonies,  to  sever  ours  from  us,  and  create  the 
great  Western  Republic;  to  rage  over  the  Old  World  when  extinguished 
in  the  New;  and,  of  all  the  myriads  engaged  in  the  vast  contest,  to 
leave  the  prize  of  the  greatest  fame  with  him  who  struck  the  first  blow!" 

The  next  year  he  was  a  part  of  Braddock's  disastrous  expedition, 
and  news  went  home  that  he  had  been  killed.  John  Augustine  Wash 
ington  made  alarmed  inquiries,  to  which  George  replied  with  a  wit 
equal  to  Mark  Twain's  under  similar  circumstances:  "As  I  have 
heard,  since  my  arrival  at  this  place,  a  circumstantial  account  of  my 
death  and  dying  speech,  I  take  this  early  opportunity  of  contradicting 
the  first,  and  of  assuring  you  that  I  have  not  as  yet  composed  the 
latter."  He  became  a  member  of  the  legislature,  and  then,  when  he 
was  twenty-six  and  a  full  colonel,  he  married  Martha  Dandridge 
Custis,  who  was  by  all  odds  the  most  accomplished  and  probably  the. 
wealthiest  young  widow  in  Williamsburg.  It  was  time  now  to  renew 
his  neglected  acquaintance  with  Mount  Vernon. 

71 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

During  the  period  of  their  engagement,  while  Washington  was 
absent  at  the  frontier,  and  later,  while  he  was  attending  the  session  of 
the  House  of  Burgesses  at  Williamsburg,  Mount  Vernon,  which  had 
been  so  long  neglected,  was  taking  on  a  new  dress.  The  activity  on 
the  plantation  was  contagious.  It  spread  down  river,  to  Belvoir,  to 
Gunston  Hall,  and  through  the  countryside  to  the  other  estates 
where  Washington  was  intimately  known,  and  where  his  earlier  and 
generous  attentions  to  attractive  daughters  did  nothing  to  dampen 
their  interest  in  his  bride.  Their  swift  coach-ride  homeward  bound 
from  Williamsburg  was  like  a  triumphal  entry.  She  added  to  his 
holdings  of  twenty-five  hundred  acres  at  Mount  Vernon,  and  as  many 
over  the  mountains,  some  fifteen  thousand  acres  of  her  own.  She  found 
the  house  rebuilt,  its  exterior  strengthened  by  new  brick  burned  on 
the  estate,  new  boarding  and  sheathing,  new  windows  and  a  new  roof; 
inside  was  new  plaster,  new  flooring,  and  plenty  of  new  closet-room, 
which  probably  touched  her  woman's  heart  as  inexpressibly  thoughtful. 

"I  am  now  I  believe  fixd  at  this  seat  with  an  agreeable  Consort 
for  Life,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in  England.  "And  I  hope  to  find  more 
happiness  in  retirement  than  I  ever  experienced  amidst  a  wide  and 
bustling  World."  Few  realize  how  wide  and  bustling  was  the  world 
surveyed  from  Mount  Vernon,  nor  to  what  extent  he  exerted  himself 
to  make  use  of  the  talents  he  had  been  given.  Remember  that  there 
were  no  neighboring  shops,  no  groceries,  no  service  stations — not  one, 
in  fact,  of  the  multitude  of  helping  hands  which  science  reaches  out 
today  to  perform  every  conceivable  task;  and  remember  too  that  in 
his  custody  were,  and  upon  his  wise  management  depended,  not  only 
the  happiness  of  his  wife  and  her  two  children,  but  that  of  a  company 
of  several  hundred  others  on  the  estate. 

Husband  and  wife  shared  in  an  informal  copartnership  not  unlike 

72 


MOUNT      VERNON 


that  of  a  manufacturer  and  a  retail  store-manager  of  today.  It  was 
her  duty  to  anticipate  the  living  demands  of  the  estate,  his  to  supply 
them.  When  she  requisitioned  cloth,  he  built  a  spinning-house  and 
hired  labor  which  in  one  year  spun  fourteen  hundred  yards  of  textiles, 
from  broadcloth  to  bed-ticking.  Convenient  to  the  house,  and  flank 
ing  the  serpentine  drive,  were  his  little  factories:  a  smokehouse  for 
meats,  a  laundry,  a  tailor-shop,  a  shoemaker's  shop,  a  carpenter's,  a 
smithy;  here  he  wrought  his  raw  materials  to  the  needs  of  his  estab 
lishment.  And  it  was  when  he  put  on  his  ' 'plain  blue  coat,  white  cas- 
simer  waistcoat,  black  breeches  and  boots"  to  visit  the  fields  and  the 
mill,  his  usual  custom  in  the  forenoon,  that  he  was  most  truly  the 
producer,  and  most  contented. 

The  estate  he  divided  into  five  farms,  each  under  an  overseer 
responsible  to  the  manager  of  the  estate,  and  each  equipped  with  the 
necessary  complement  of  labor,  buildings  and  stock.  Through  the 
manager  the  reports  of  progress  from  the  five  farms  were  passed  up  to 
the  master  in  the  big  house  every  Saturday  morning,  and  with  scrup 
ulous  precision  he  transcribed  and  classified  them.  Washington  never 
heard  of  a  microbe,  nor  studied  chemistry,  yet  in  these  reports  and  his 
own  conclusions  will  be  found  exhaustive  experiments  in  inoculating 
the  soil  and  rotating  crops.  He  balanced  his  cultivation  so  as  to 
produce  sufficient  food  for  his  people  and  stock,  and  the  utmost  yield 
of  negotiable  grains.  '  'Our  lands, ' '  he  wrote, '  'were  originally  very  good ; 
but  use  and  abuse  have  made  them  quite  otherwise"  —and  so  he  sent 
abroad  for  new  seeds  to  try  out.  Selected  quantities  of  his  grains  he 
set  aside  for  experiment  upon  the  diet  of  his  livestock.  Although  he 
was  a  host  of  lavish  hospitality  within  the  house,  every  move  he  made 
as  a  farmer  was  a  lesson  in  conservation.  His  woodcutters  got  explicit 
orders  to  select  the  timber  they  cut;  his  overseers  were  told  not  to  try 

73 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

to  squeeze  the  land  for  high  crop  yield  at  the  expense  of  upkeep;  each 
new  herd  of  cattle  must  be  better  stock  than  the  last;  the  mill  was 
re-engineered  to  grind  more  meal  from  each  bushel  of  corn;  a  stone 
deposit  became  a  quarry;  the  waters  of  the  Potomac  gave  up  "a  suf 
ficiency  of  fish  for  my  own  people"  in  the  first  catch,  and  beyond 
that  a  great  supply  for  salting  and  sale  in  the  winter  market;  every 
by-product  of  the  estate  was  developed  and  applied.  Jefferson  sat  at 
Monticello  above  nature's  workshop  as  at  a  play;  Washington  took 
off  his  plain  blue  coat  and  tinkered  with  the  machinery  to  increase  its 
efficiency. 

In  his  admirable  work  on  Mount  Vernon,  Paul  Wilstach  has  hit 
upon  the  secret  of  its  master's  enthusiasm: 

"Mount  Vernon  was  eventually  brought  to  a  state  of  high  pro 
ductiveness,  but  the  scale  of  life  there  was  such  that  rarely  did  the 
farms  show  a  balance  wholly  on  the  right  side  of  the  ledger.  Wash 
ington  had  to  look  to  his  estate  for  other  assets  than  appeared  in  the 
physical  valuation  of  its  produce.  He  found  its  true  and  largest  asset 
in  the  fulfilled  ideal  of  private  life;  in  solving  the  interesting  problems 
of  the  planter;  in  mental  health  and  physical  strength;  and  in  the 
enjoyment  of  the  easy  and  graceful  social  life  of  the  colonial  country 
gentleman,  of  which  Mount  Vernon  became  a  veritable  example." 

A  vigorous  life  is  easy  and  natural  to  a  man  of  Washington's  phys 
ical  power.  He  was  six-feet-three-inches  high,  rose  with  the  sun,  and 
went  to  bed  at  nine  unless  there  were  guests.  His  routine  during  the 
sixteen  years  preceding  the  Revolution  was  varied  on  this  day  to  ride 
"Valiant"  or  "Ajax"  after  the  hounds,  on  that  to  dine  at  Belvoir  or 
Gunston  Hall,  or  Belle  Aire;  now  up-river  to  a  dance  at  Alexandria, 
now  down-river  shooting  ducks;  this  week  to  Annapolis  and  the  races, 
next  to  Williamsburg  on  affairs  of  the  legislature.  A  never-ending 

74 


MOUNT      VERNON 


procession  of  guests  arrived  and  departed,  from  parsons  to  British 
naval  officers,  and  found  a  uniformly  perfect  welcome — even  extending 
to  the  gentleman  who  "contrary  to  all  expectation"  held  Washington 
motionless  for  three  sittings  while  he  painted  his  first  portrait,  and 
charged  him  slightly  more  than  ^57  for  effigies  of  himself,  Mrs.  Wash 
ington,  Martha  and  Jack  Custis. 

To  the  refurnished  home  Mrs.  Washington  had  brought  many 
objects  of  her  own  to  add  to  its  luxury,  which  was  further  enhanced 
from  time  to  time  by  orders  upon  his  London  agents  for  furniture  and 
ornaments.  On  one  occasion  he  wrote  for  busts  of  Alexander,  Caesar, 
Charles  XII  of  Sweden  and  the  King  of  Prussia,  fifteen  inches  high; 
Prince  Eugene  and  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  somewhat  smaller;  and 
"Wild  Beasts,  not  to  exceed  twelve  inches  in  height  nor  eighteen  in 
length."  He  received  instead: 

"A  Groupe  of  Aeneas  carrying  his  Father  out  of  Troy,  with  four  statues,  viz. 
his  Father  Anchises,  his  wife  Creusa  and  his  son  Ascanius,  neatly  finisht  and 
bronzed  with  copper ,£3.3" 

"Two  Groupes,  with  two  statues  each  of  Bacchus  &  Flora,  finisht  neat  & 
bronzed  with  copper ^4.4" 

and  "Two  Lyons  after  the  antique  Lyons  in  Italy,"  also  "finisht 
neat,"  with  the  following  apology: 

"There  is  no  busts  of  Alexander  ye  Great  (none  at  all  of  Charles  12th  of 
Sweden),  Julius  Causar,  King  of  Prussia,  Prince  Eugene,  nor  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough,  of  the  size  desired;  and  to  make  models  would  be  very  expensive — at  least 
4  guineas  each." 

With  other  orders  the  agents  had  better  luck,  for  it  was  neither  diffi 
cult  nor  distasteful  to  satisfy  a  Virginia  gentleman  who  merely  described 
the  articles  ordered  (if  he  described  them  at  all)  as  either  "good"  or 
"neat"  or  "fashionable."  He  bought  the  best,  rarely  specified  price, 

75 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSE- S 

and  paid  in  the  best  tobacco — a  fair  deal  all  round,  and  a  very  agree 
ably  furnished  home  Mount  Vernon  became. 

There  came  a  day  when  he  was  called  to  command  the  army  in 
the  north.  For  eight  years  thereafter  Mount  Vernon  saw  him  but 
twice,  and  then  for  fleeting  visits:  once  on  his  way  southward  from 
Dobbs  Ferry  to  Williamsburg,  during  the  march  on  Yorktown;  once 
on  his  return  to  the  north.  Those  years  had  seen  his  ascent  to  the 
height  of  public  veneration.  On  December  4  of  1783  his  officers  bade 
him  a  frankly  tearful  good-bye  at  Fraunce's  Tavern  in  New  York, 
and  the  chief  "walked  in  silence  to  Whitehall,  followed  by  a  vast  pro 
cession  .  .  .  and  entered  a  barge  .  .  .  on  his  way  to  lay 
his  commission  at  the  feet  of  Congress  at  Annapolis."  His  progress 
to  Mount  Vernon  was  a  succession  of  popular  demonstrations.  And 
when  on  Christmas  Eve  he  went  up  the  hill  and  pandemonium  broke 
loose  to  see  the  master  returned,  in  his  mind  were  no  thoughts  of  con 
sulates  or  dictatorships,  empire  or  world-domination,  but  only  pro 
found  relief  that  he  had  come  at  last  into  sweet  and  voluntary  exile 
from  affairs. 

He  had  served  without  pay  through  the  war,  and  his  first  con 
cern  now  was  to  put  the  estate  on  its  feet.  He  took  up  the  flags  of 
the  eastern  piazza,  reinforced  the  foundations  of  the  house,  "removed 
two  pretty  large  and  full-grown  lilacs  to  the  No.  Garden  gate," 
combed  the  neighboring  forest  for  handsome  trees  to  transplant,  am 
plified  his  orchards,  stocked  a  deer  park,  and  made  his  daily  rounds 
of  the  farms.  The  man  who  had  lately  dictated  terms  to  the  best  sol 
diers  out  of  Europe  got  from  his  gardener  a  promise  to  stay  sober  most 
of  the  time  on  consideration  of  "four  dollars  at  Christmas,  with  which 
he  may  be  drunk  four  days  and  four  nights;  two  dollars  at  Easter 
to  effect  the  same  purpose;  two  dollars  at  Whitsuntide  to  be  drunk 


MOUNT      VERNON 


for  two  days;  a  dram  in  the  morning  and  a  drink  of  grog  at  dinner 
at  noon." 

If  there  had  been  visitors  before  the  war,  double  their  number 
flocked  to  him  now.  One  night  he  was  routed  out  of  bed  to  receive  a 
young  French  sculptor,  sent  by  Jefferson  and  Franklin  in  Paris  to  make 
his  statue  for  the  capitol  at  Richmond.  A  Mount  Vernon  tradition 
says  that  a  few  days  later  Washington  was  called  out  to  look  at  a  pair 
of  horses  offered  for  sale.  He  asked  the  price,  and  was  told  "a  thou 
sand  dollars."  He  drew  himself  up  in  indignation,  for  a  thousand 
dollars  was  an  outrageous  price  for  a  horse  and  was  likewise  a  tenth 
of  his  whole  year's  living  expense.  Houdon,  the  sculptor,  had  been 
dogging  Washington's  footsteps  for  days,  studying  his  subject.  He 
caught  the  general  in  the  fine  glow  of  dignified  wrath,  cried  out,  "I  'ave 
him!  I  'ave  him!"  and  set  to  work  at  once  to  make  the  pose  immortal. 
With  a  life  mask,  sketches,  and  full  measurements  he  returned  to  Paris, 
and  there,  with  Gouverneur  Morris  posing  for  the  standing  figure, 
he  made  the  composite  statue  which  stands  at  Richmond  today. 

There  came  a  youngster  of  twenty,  very  quiet  and  abashed  at  an 
audience  with  the  great  general.  This  boy's  name  was  Robert  Fulton, 
he  who  later  invented  the  steamboat.  There  came  ^_Noah  Webster, 
who  was  to  write  the  great  American  dictionary;  there  came  Jedediah 
Morse,  who  wrote  the  first  American  geography.  Lafayette,  the 
'Trench  boy,"  was  always  welcome,  and  he  spent  nineteen  days  there 
in  the  autumn  of  1784.  Others  were  not  so  welcome:  "My  house  may 
be  compared  to  a  well-resorted  tavern,"  wrote  Washington.  He  had 
to  summon  young  Laurence  Washington  to  Mount  Vernon  to  carry 
its  social  burden  after  candle-light,  when  he  withdrew  to  his  study  to 
answer  letters,  or  to  taste  the  human  pleasure  of  postponing  answers 
"until  tomorrow  evening,"  as  he  confessed  to  his  former  secretary  of 

77 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

war.  But,  welcome  or  uninvited,  they  all  came,  for  the  country  was 
to  have  a  new  government,  and  Washington  was  not  only  to  help 
build  it,  but  to  run  it.  With  the  same  modest  misgivings  of  his  own 
capacity  for  the  post  that  he  had  frankly  confessed  in  1775,  he  went 
out  again  in  1789  to  serve  his  country,  and  put  aside  again  the  labor 
that  was  nearest  to  his  heart. 

For  eight  years  more  his  sight  of  Mount  Vernon  was  limited  to 
visits  borrowed  from  public  affairs,  but  he  never  lost  his  grip  on  its 
minute  arrangements,  directing,  advising,  correcting  in  his  letters  to 
his  managers.  In  one  downright  homesick  moment  he  said  flatly 
that  he  would  rather  be  at  home  with  a  friend  or  two  than  to  be  at 
tended  at  the  seat  of  government  by  the  officers  of  state  and  the  rep 
resentatives  of  every  power  in  Europe.  John  Adams,  after  his  in 
auguration  in  1797,  wrote  a  letter  to  his  wife,  who  had  not  been  there 
to  enjoy  the  greatest  moment  of  his  life.  "It  was  made  more  affecting 
to  me,"  he  said,  "by  the  presence  of  the  General,  whose  countenance 
was  as  serene  and  unclouded  as  the  day.  He  seemed  to  enjoy  a  triumph 
over  me.  Methought  I  heard  him  say,  'Ay,  I  am  fairly  out  and  you 
fairly  in!  See  which  of  us  will  be  the  happiest!' '  Everything  on  that 
bright  March  day  in  Philadelphia  sang  "Home!" 

Presently  he  was  there,  admiring  the  new  setting  of  the  fine  fur 
niture  and  silver  and  glassware  and  china  brought  down  from  the 
Presidential  Mansion  in  the  Capital,  some  of  which  is  in  the  house  to 
day.  Sixty-five  years  old,  with  the  western  world  at  his  feet,  and  he 
saw  only  the  broad  reaches  of  the  Potomac  down  below  the  ha-ha 
walls.  Sixty-six,  and  to  see  a  young  lad  named  Charles  Carroll  from 
Maryland  courting  his  favorite  grand-daughter  made  a  man  feel  young 
himself.  Sixty-seven,  forty  years  married,  the  favorite  grand-daughter 
to  be  married  (though  not  to  Charles  Carroll),  and  life  seemed  peren- 

78 


MOUNT      VERNON 


nial.     One  December  morning  he  caught  cold  riding  the  farms,  and 
two  days  later  was  dead. 

Nothing  short  of  the  domestic  enthusiasm  of  George  Washington 
could  have  kept  Mount  Vernon  in  order.  For  sixty  years  it  yielded 
gradually  to  the  advance  of  time.  Then,  through  the  truly  heroic 
zeal  of  Miss  Ann  Pamela  Cunningham  of  Laurens,  S.  C.,  and  the  elo 
quence  of  Edward  Everett,  and  the  fine  spirit  of  Miss  Cunningham's 
Mount  Vernon  Ladies'  Association  of  the  Union,  the  estate  was  pur 
chased,  and  with  searching  fidelity  to  the  wishes  of  its  master,  restored 
to  the  state  in  which  he  would  have  had  it.  Too  fulsome  praise  can 
hardly  be  expressed — certainly  not  here — for  the  good  sense,  discrim 
ination  and  good  organization  which  combine  to  maintain  the  estate. 
It  is  as  if  a  hand  had  touched  it  lightly  on  a  spring  morning  in  the 
brightest  year  of  its  occupancy,  and  had  held  it,  fixed  forever  in  the 
pose,  like  the  castle  of  the  sleeping  princess.  No  prince  will  come  to 
rouse  the  place.  But  better  than  that,  after  sixty  years  of  care  and  a 
century  and  a  half  of  life,  it  re-creates  each  year  to  thousands  of  pil 
grims  the  crises  and  victories  that  wrote  our  creed  as  a  nation.  And 
fortunately  no  landholder  on  this  great  farm  of  ours  will  leave  Mount 
Vernon  without  a  deep  sense  of  relief  that  it  is  first  and  last  a  perfect 
monument  to  a  country  gentleman. 


79 


THE  QUINCY  HOMESTEAD 


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THE  QUINCY  HOMESTEAD 

IT  is  perhaps  impolite  to  compare  a  Massachusetts  family  tree  to  a 
banyan  instead  of  the  conventional  elm,  but  no  prowler  among  her 
old  houses  can  come  away  without  a  feeling  that  almost  everything  in 
New  England  is  related  to  almost  everything  else.  Chicago  glances 
over  Boston's  shoulder  and  finds  her  reading  the  Monday  Transcript's 
genealogy  page;  Chicago  howls  with  laughter  and  turns  to  Vanity 
Fair  to  see  what  is  going  on  in  New  York.  Boston  is  momentarily 
interrupted,  doesn't  know  quite  what  Chicago  is  laughing  at,  returns 
a  well-bred  smile  of  complete  detachment,  and  plunges  back  into  the 
genealogy  page. 

This  business  of  keeping  track  of  marriages  and  deaths,  cousin- 
ships  and  children-by-the-second-wife  is  serious,  though  bred  of  no 
spirit  of  arrogance,  no  desire  to  find  a  coat  of  arms  for  the  door  of  the 
new  town-car.  There  is  brisk  mental  exercise  in  chasing  an  obscure 
ancestor  to  his  lair  and  finding  that  he  was  what  you  thought  he  was 
when  you  started  out,  and  not  his  own  grand-nephew-twice-removed. 
Further,  reasons  Boston,  unless  you  know  to  whom  a  person  is  related, 
how  can  you  know  to  whom  that  person  is  related?  By  this  sound 
process  of  logic  a  personal  news  item  in  a  Boston  newspaper  worth 
six  agate  lines  of  white  paper  is  so  interestingly  overgrown  with  eigh 
teen  or  twenty  lines  of  genealogical  wistaria  that  the  outsider  has 
some  trouble  peering  through  the  vines  to  the  item  itself.  He  will 
never  understand  the  irrelevant  matter  until  he  understands  that  it 
is  not  irrelevant,  that  the  ever-present  landmarks  of  tradition  are 

83 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

bristling  with  precedents,  and  that  the  respect  for  those  precedents  is 
so  congenital  that  they  guide  the  footsteps  of  New  Englanders  more 
than  even  New  Englanders  suspect.* 

If  the  foreigner  from  beyond  the  Hudson  or  the  Delaware  or  the 
Mississippi  will  do  himself  the  favor  of  visiting  the  Quincy  house,  he 
will  sense  the  point,  and  be  paid  in  full  measure  by  the  contemplation 
of  a  house  with  a  varied  and  engaging  story. 

It  began  life  as  a  Puritan  farmstead,  by  a  brookside  in  the  town 
of  Braintree.  Sixteen  years  after  the  first  settlement  at  Plymouth, 
and  therefore  nearly  three  centuries  ago,  William  Coddington  built 
three  rooms  on  a  kitchen.  Bigoted  public  opinion  soon  broke  up  the 
trio  of  liberals  who  used  to  sit  and  talk  free  worship  before  the  great 
fireplace  in  that  kitchen — Coddington  fled,  Sir  Harry  Vane  went  other 
ways,  and  Anne  Hutchinson  was  banished  from  the  colony.  Edmund 
Quincy,  the  new  owner,  came  out  from  Boston,  with  a  retinue  of  six 
servants.  Such  a  staff  was  a  rare  luxury  in  those  ascetic  days.  It  is 
partially  explained  by  the  fact  that  in  an  age  of  large  families  Edmund 
Quincy's  was  no  exception,  and  four  children  wanted  a  lot  of  looking 
after.  He  enlarged  the  house  to  accommodate  his  growing  tribe,  and 
about  1685  gave  up  the  Coddington  structure  to  his  slaves,  while  he 
built  a  new  house  a  few  rods  away.  (It  was  this  Edmund's  sister  who 
married  the  master  of  the  Mint,  John  Hull;  he  named  Point  Judith 
after  her,  and  their  daughter  Hannah  was  the  maiden  who  was  given 
in  marriage  with  a  dowry  of  her  weight  in  pine-tree  shillings — one  hun 
dred  and  twenty-five  pounds  avoirdupois  and  five  hundred  sterling.) 

*  I  am  told  by  Mr.  George  Stephenson,  of  the  Transcript,  that  the  bulk  of  special  sub 
scription  to  the  genealogical  issues  comes  from  the  Middle  West.  Again  brutal  statistics 
blunder  in  to  shatter  a  pleasant  theory.  I  repeat  this  to  a  Boston  beldame;  she  says,  "Why 
of  course — those  subscribers  are  from  families  who  migrated  west  to  make  money,  and  now,  of 
course — "  and  leaves  me  to  fill  out  the  sentence.  My  theory  stands,  and  defies  the  lightnings. 

84 


THE      QUINCY      HOMESTEAD 

Another  Edmund,  the  third  of  the  American  line  and  the  sec 
ond  in  possession  of  the  estate  on  Quincy  Brook,  fell  heir  to  it  when 
his  father  died  in  1698.  Through  his  grandmother  Edmund  was 
already  related  to  the  line  which  was  presently  to  bring  forth  John 
Adams.  His  thirteen  brothers  and  sisters  and  numerous  cousins 
connected  him  by  marriage  with  nearly  all  the  families  of  the  settle 
ment,  and  out  of  one  of  those  ceremonies  is  left  to  us  a  glimpse 
of  tragedy:  Judge  Sewall  records  in  his  diary  that  just  after  "Cousin 
Daniel"  was  being  married  to  Mrs.  Shepard,  when  the  guests  were 
singing  in  the  hall,  one  of  them  dropped  dead.  Her  body  was  carried 
to  the  room  which  was  to  have  been  the  bride's,  "the  Bridegroom  and 
Bride  .  .  .  going  away  like  Persons  put  to  flight  in  Battel"  to 
spend  their  honeymoon  at  a  neighbor's  house. 

Edmund  the  Third  was  a  man  not  only  of  fortune  but  of  dis 
crimination,  which  he  showed  by  marrying  Dorothy  Flynt — the  first 
"Dorothy  Q."  In  1706  he  invited  the  whole  countryside  to  the  estate 
by  the  brook,  and  around  and  above  the  old  Coddington  house  the 
whole  corps  of  neighbors,  abetted  by  hard  cider,  raised  the  huge  tim 
bers  of  a  new  mansion,  the  one  which  stands  there  today  restored  to 
its  full  dignity.  It  was  a  suitable  dwelling  for  a  man  of  eminence  in 
the  colony,  a  man  big  enough  to  quarrel  with  Benning  Wentworth 
over  the  boundary  of  New  Hampshire.  On  the  rear  of  the  new  home 
he  built  an  extension  containing  a  bedroom  and  a  study,  where  "Tutor" 
Flynt,  Mrs.  Quincy's  brother,  could  find  rest  from  his  duties  in  Har 
vard  College,  and  there  Tutor  Flynt  spent  most  of  a  crusty,  tobacco- 
perfumed  bachelor  life  as  a  sort  of  paying  guest,  driving  down  to 
Braintree  from  Cambridge  in  a  caliche  for  week-ends  and  the  longer 
holidays.  (Tutor  Flynt,  by  the  way,  is  the  earliest  recorded 
user  of  the  "If-you-are-going-to-Heaven-I-don't-want-to-go- there"  joke, 

85 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

though  genuine  research  would  doubtless  reveal  that  Shem  made 
the  same  remark  to  Japheth  one  afternoon  when  the  Ark  lay  be 
calmed.) 

The  light  of  the  household  was  Dorothy  Q,  and  the  source  of  her 
radiance  was  her  family  of  growing  children.  Three  of  them  claim  our 
attention:  Edmund  (the  Fourth),  who  inherited  the  Homestead; 
Josiah  (the  first  of  a  series  of  notable  Josiahs) ;  and  a  second  Dorothy, 
whom  her  grandson,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  described  in  this  way: 

' '  O  Damsel  Dorothy !     Dorothy  Q ! 
Strange  is  the  gift  that  I  owe  to  you; 
Such  a  gift  as  never  a  king 
Save  to  daughter  or  son  might  bring, — 
All  my  tenure  of  heart  and  hand, 
All  my  title  to  house  and  land ; 
Mother  and  sister  and  child  and  wife 
And  joy  and  sorrow  and  death  and  life! 

"What  if  a  hundred  years  ago 
Those  close-shut  lips  had  answered  No, 
When  forth  the  tremulous  question  came 
That  cost  the  maiden  her  Norman  name 
Should  I  be  I,  or  would  it  be 
One-tenth  another  to  nine-tenths  me?" 

Dorothy  Q  the  Second  was  a  dear  child,  carrying  at  fifteen  the  cares  of 
the  household,  and  apparently  pointed  down  the  path  of  a  winsome 
spinsterhood.  But  within  a  few  weeks,  in  the  summer  of  1737,  [her 
grandmother,  her  mother,  and  then  her  father  died,  and  she  married 
Edward  Jackson  and  went  to  live  in  Boston,  where  her  husband  was 
a  ship-owner  in  partnership  with  her  brother  Josiah. 

One  of  their  vessels,  the  Bethell,  with  thirty-seven  men  and  fourteen 
guns,  fell  in  with  the  Jesus  Maria  and  Joseph,  a  Spaniard  with  110  men 

and  twenty-six  guns.    The  BethelVs  skipper  gambled  on  the  gathering 

86 


THE      QUINCY      HOMESTEAD 

twilight,  set  up  six  wooden  dummy  guns,  hung  sailors'  caps  and  hats 
in  the  rigging  to  suggest  a  numerous  crew,  and  then  demanded  the 
Spaniard's  surrender.  Down  came  her  ensign!  The  Spanish  crew 
was  set  ashore  at  Fayal,  and  the  Beth  ell  brought  back  to  Josiah 
and  Dorothy  one-hundred-and-sixty-one  chests  of  silver,  and  two  of 
Spanish  gold. 

With  the  prize  money  safely  banked,  Josiah  was  able  to  retire 
from  business  at  the  age  of  forty.  He  moved  to  Braintree,  taking 
up  his  residence  in  the  Hancock  parsonage,  across  the  way  from  the 
Homestead.  Brother  Edmund,  the  lantern-jawed  parson,  who  had 
been  living  in  Boston  and  spending  his  summers  in  Braintree,  moved 
to  the  Homestead  in  his  turn,  lost  most  of  his  share  of  the  prize 
money  in  artless  speculation,  and  turned  to  farming. 

Life  in  the  two  families  presented  diversion  aplenty — most  of  the 
eligible  young  men  of  Boston  and  Braintree  were  courting  Edmund's  five 
daughters.  A  sober  young  man  named  John  Adams  was  running  peril 
ously  close  to  the  charms  of  Hannah,  Josiah's  daughter.  He  was  a 
marked  man  when  her  cousins,  Esther  and  Susan,  suddenly  "broke  in 
upon  Hannah  and  me  and  interrupted  a  conversation  that  would  have 
terminated  in  a  courtship  that  would  have  terminated  in  a  marriage 
which  might  have  depressed  me  to  absolute  poverty  and  obscurity  to  the 
end  of  my  life."  He  veered,  took  a  deep  breath,  went  away  from  there, 
and  two  years  later  was  married  to  Abigail  Smith,  who  alone  of  Amer 
ican  women  was  the  wife  and  the  mother  of  an  American  president. 
Important  guests  occasionally  penetrated  the  swarm  of  suitors — such 
men  as  Admiral  Warren  and  Sir  William  Pepperrell,  the  heroes  of 
Louisburg;  or  Benjamin  Franklin,  who  sent  Squire  Quincy  cuttings; 
of  Rhenish  grapevines  and  a  new  stove  which  he  had  invented;  or 
Sir  Harry  Frankland,  who  gave  the  Squire  a  fine  pear-sapling — the 

87 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

same  Sir  Harry  who  married  Agnes  Surriage,  whom  he  had  first  seen 
barefoot,  scrubbing  floors  in  a  tavern  in  Marblehead. 

And  the  youngest  of  all  was  Dorothy  Q  the  Third,  with  four  big 
brothers  and  three  boy  cousins  to  pay  her  court,  and  four  elder  sisters 
to  study.  Through  all  the  bitter  period  that  followed  the  Boston 
Massacre,  when  her  cousin  Josiah  Junior  and  John  Adams  were  de 
fending  the  British  captain,  and  her  cousin  Samuel  was  appearing  for 
the  Crown,  Dorothy  Q  was  on  the  fringe  of  the  excitement,  coquetting 
with  all  of  the  earnest  youths  who  were  polishing  their  arms,  but 
engaging  in  entangling  alliance  with  none.  Not  until  she  was  twenty- 
seven  did  she  make  her  choice,  and  then  it  was  John  Hancock,  the 
chief  figure  of  pre-revolutionary  days  in  Boston,  a  vigorous  patriot 
who  defied  the  Crown  and  became  a  member  of  the  Committee  of 
Safety.  Most  of  the  winter  of  1774-75  she  spent  with  his  aunt  in 
the  Hancock  mansion,  where  came  Revere,  and  Warren,  and  Samuel 
and  John  Adams.  By  March  of  '75  she  was  back  in  Quincy,  gather 
ing  her  trousseau,  and  superintending  the  application  of  a  new  French 
wall-paper  to  the  walls  of  the  north  parlor,  where  a  company  of  conven 
tional  blue  Venuses  and  Cupids,  garlanded  with  delicate  flowers,  was 
to  preside  over  the  wedding  ceremony.  The  untroubled  Homestead 
presented  a  strong  contrast  to  the  one  she  had  left  in  Boston:  a  loyal 
ist  rabble  stormed  the  Hancock  house,  tore  down  the  fence,  broke  the 
windows  and  wrecked  the  coach-house,  and  the  prospective  bride 
groom,  threatened  with  arrest,  was  obliged  to  escape  with  little  dig 
nity  and  all  possible  speed. 

He  turned  up  at  Concord  for  the  meeting  of  the  Provincial  Con 
gress  on  April  15,  and  after  its  adjournment  he  was  joined  by  Dor 
othy,  Madame  Hancock  and  Samuel  Adams  at  the  Rev.  Jonas  Clark's 

house  in  Lexington.     Quietly,  in  the  evening  of  the  eighteenth,  British 

88 


THE      QUINCY      HOMESTEAD 

troops  assembled  in  Boston  for  a  march  to  destroy  the  stores  at  Con 
cord.  As  quietly,  Paul  Revere  rowed  across  the  mouth  of  the  river  to 
Charlestown,  slipped  by  the  guard,  and  rode  hell-bent  into  the  sleeping 
country.  He  pulled  up  at  the  Clark  parsonage  and  called  for  Adams 
and  Hancock.  "Don't  make  so  much  noise,"  said  a  minute-man  on 
guard.  "Notsef"  shouted  Revere,  "You'll  have  noise  enough  before 
long — the  regulars  are  coming!" — and  he  delivered  Joseph  Warren's 
warning  to  Adams  and  Hancock  to  get  out  of  the  neighborhood  at 
once.  Against  their  will  they  fled  to  Woburn,  while  Dorothy  slept 
no  more  that  night.  At  dawn  she  saw  Pitcairn  and  his  scarlet  column 
tramp  to  the  Lexington  common  and  set  fire  to  the  Revolution.  Then 
she  joined  her  lover  in  Woburn,  and  when  he  tried  to  forbid  her  to 
go  back  to  Boston,  the  strain  of  a  sleepless  night  and  the  horrors 
of  the  day  broke  the  bridle  on  her  tongue  and  she  tossed  her  head 
and  retorted:  "Recollect,  Mr.  Hancock,  I  am  not  under  your  con 
trol  yet.  I  shall  go  to  my  father  tomorrow!" 

Having  spoken  her  mind,  she  exercised  a  woman's  privilege  in 
changing  it — and  did  almost  as  he  had  asked:  set  out  at  once  for  a 
safe  refuge  at  Fairfield  in  Connecticut. 

She  was  still  somewhat  piqued.  She  found  at  Fairfield,  in  the  per 
son  of  her  host's  nephew,  an  eager  listener  to  her  narrative  of  the  skirmish 
at  Lexington — a  Princeton  graduate  who  was  studying  law.  He  prob 
ably  gained  her  confidence  at  once  by  asking  her  just  what  she  thought 
he  ought  to  do,  and  by  offering  to  join  the  colors  for  her  sake.  Aaron 
Burr  was  very  accomplished  at  that  sort  of  thing,  and  considered  it 
good  exercise,  for  he  was  carrying  on  two  other  affairs  and  an  anony 
mous  sentimental  correspondence  at  the  same  time.  To  Hancock's 
affectionate  letter  from  Philadelphia  Dorothy  made  no  reply.  For  the 
peace  offering  of  silk  stockings  he  sent  her  she  said  not  even  "thank- 

89 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

you."  Then  either  Madame  Hancock  or  Dorothy's  own  conscience 
stepped  in  and  settled  the  quarrel.  Burr  left  for  Cambridge  to  enlist, 
and  Hancock  came  to  Fairfield  and  married  the  lady. 

They  took  up  their  home  in  Boston  on  the  heels  of  the  British 
evacuation,  and  until  Hancock  went  back  to  Brain  tree  to  die  in  1793 
her  life  was  a  brilliant  panorama  of  illustrious  society.  When  Wash 
ington  came  to  Boston  in  1789,  Hancock,  who  was  governor  of  the 
Commonwealth,  invited  him  to  be  a  guest  in  the  fine  house  on 
Beacon  Street  opposite  the  Common.  Washington  declined  and  the 
governor  offered  him  an  invitation  to  dinner.  On  the  assumption 
that  within  his  own  state  a  governor's  position  was  sovereign 
to  that  of  the  President,  he  did  not  call  upon  Washington  before 
dinner.  The  hour  came,  but  no  President,  and  Hancock  sent  a  mes 
senger  to  apologize  to  Washington  for  not  having  paid  his  respects, 
and  to  plead  that  sudden  illness  prevented.  Washington  guessed 
that  the  illness  was  sour-grape  poisoning  and  ate  his  dinner  at  home. 
Later  in  the  evening  the  lieutenant-governor  and  two  councilmen 
appeared  to  repeat  Hancock's  apology.  "I  informed  them,"  Wash 
ington  writes  in  his  diary,  "that  I  should  not  see  the  governor  except 
at  my  own  lodgings."  The  next  day  Hancock  bent  his  stiff  neck  to 
the  president,  apologized,  and  the  two  became  friends  again. 

The  Squire  had  long  since  sold  his  rights  in  the  old  Homestead, 
though  the  family  continued  to  occupy  it  until  his  death  in  1788.  It 
passed  successively  through  the  families  of  Black,  Greenleaf,  and 
Wood.ward,  and  then  into  the  hands  of  the  town  of  Quincy,  which 
was  now  formally  detached  from  Braintree.  For  thirty  years  it  was 
held  by  the  town  as  part  of  a  trust  fund  Ebenezer  Woodward  left  to 
found  a  girl's  academy  to  match  the  boy's  school  started  by  John 
Adams. 

9° 


THE      QUINCY      HOMESTEAD 

Even  before  the  Squire's  family  had  dispersed  from  the  house,  its 
earlier  liveliness  was  somewhat  dimmed  by  the  crescent  line  of  able 
Quincys  in  another  Quincy  house  built  by  the  first  Josiah,  and  now 
known  as  the  "later  Quincy  Mansion."  From  its  windows  he  recorded 
the  sailing  of  the  British  from  Boston  in  1775;  from  those  windows  his 
children  saw  the  Constitution  sail  in  victorious  over  the  Guerriere. 
There  lived  Josiah  the  Second,  agent  of  the  provincials  at  London,  who 
died  off  Marblehead  as  the  firing  at  Lexington  began,  while  his  wife 
and  the  third  Josiah  were  fleeing  from  a  threatened  naval  attack  on 
Braintree.  Josiah  the  Third  grew  up  to  be  mayor  of  Boston  and  pres 
ident  of  Harvard,  and  if  no  other  distinction  remained  to  him  except 
this  passage  from  his  speech  in  Congress  on  the  embargo  in  1808,  it 
would  be  a  proud  enough  monument  for  any  American: 

"But  I  shall  be  told,  'This  may  lead  to  war.'  I  ask,  'Are  we  now  at  peace?' 
Certainly  not,  unless  retiring  from  insult  be  peace — unless  shrinking  under  the 
lash  be  peace.  The  surest  way  to  prevent  war  is  not  to  fear  it.  The  idea  that 
nothing  on  earth  is  so  dreadful  as  war  is  inculcated  too  studiously  among  us. 
Disgrace  is  worse.  Abandonment  of  essential  rights  is  worse." 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  Daniel  Webster,  Lafayette,  and  the  Adamses, 
father  and  son,  came  often  to  the  home  of  Josiah,  or  that,  given  his 
heredity  and  achievement,  he  had  such  sons  as  Josiah  the  Fourth, 
another  mayor  of  Boston  and  an  able  economist,  and  Edmund,  the 
stanch  abolitionist? 

The  older  house  by  the  brook  was  leading  a  humble  and  retired 
old  age  when  the  Colonial  Dames  took  over  its  custody.  Their  res 
toration  not  only  has  made  the  utmost  of  the  material  they  found, 
but  has  brought  to  the  house  a  collection  of  articles  which  are  uni 
formly  good  and  are  in  some  instances  rare  and  beautiful.  The  long 
hall  has  tall  spotless  wainscoting  and  hunting  paper,  a  carven  balus- 

91 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

trade  and  newel  post;  in  a  low-studded  dining-room  a  set  of  1770  Dutch 
chairs  surrounds  an  Empire  table,  in  a  corner  stands  a  buffet  whose 
builder  died  a  century  and  a  half  ago;  at  the  fireplace  are  Delft  tiles 
nearly  as  aged  as  the  fireplace  itself,  and  there  is  an  odd  Chinese  paper 
on  the  walls.  In  the  parlor  is  the  Venus-and-Cupid  paper  hung  for 
Dorothy  Q's  wedding,  in  the  window  frames  is  glass  made  by  a  Quincy 
in  the  first  glassworks  in  America.  You  may  read  in  one  of  those  panes 
the  initials  "J  H"  as  you  may  find  the  writer's  full  name  on  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence,  and  in  the  pane  below,  in  the  same  hand, 
"You  I  love,  and  you  alone."  You  will  be  interested  in  Tutor  Flynt's 
bed,  built  in  a  recess  of  the  brookside  bedroom.  You  may  be  mildly 
thrilled  by  the  Indian-proof  shutters,  mystified  by  the  secret  staircase 
which  follows  the  course  of  the  chimney,  and  delighted  with  the 
kitchen  William  Coddington  built,  with  its  eight-inch  beams,  Dutch 
oven,  churn,  spinning-wheel,  and  a  musket  over  the  mantel  for  invit 
ing  Indians  to  dinner. 

There  are  ever  so  many  things  in  the  house  today  to  call  up  a 
Quincy  tradition,  for  if  you  scratch  almost  any  chapter  of  New  England 
history  you  will  find  a  Quincy  tradition  underneath.  Take  away  its 
Hoars,  Lowells,  Holmeses,  Adamses,  Wendells,  Hancocks,  Sewalls — 
to  mention  only  a  few  of  the  Quincy  connections — and  you  have  left 
hardly  enough  to  make  a  Monday  Transcript. 

And  yet  their  generic  importance  was  the  least  of  their  concerns. 
"Could  I  ever  suppose,"  wrote  John  Adams,  "that  family  pride  were  in 
any  way  excusable,  I  should  think  a  descent  from  a  line  of  vigorous 
independent  New  England  farmers  for  a  hundred  years  was  a  better 
foundation  for  it  than  a  descent  through  royal  or  noble  scoundrels 
ever  since  the  flood." 


92 


THE  TIMOTHY  DEXTER  MANSION 


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THE  TIMOTHY  DEXTER  MANSION 

Lord  Dexter  is  a  man  of  fame; 

Most  celebrated  is  his  name; 

More  precious  far  than  gold  that's  pure, 

Lord  Dexter  shine  for  evermore. 

— Jonathan  Plummer. 

YES,  Jonathan  Plummer  wrote  that  jingle.  It  is  from  the  only 
survivor  of  a  gross  of  eulogies  he  wrote  of  Lord  Dexter.  And 
quite  proper  that  he  should.  He  was  Lord  Dexter 's  poet  laureate, 
hired,  clothed  and  fed  to  produce  eulogies  on  demand.  His  poetry 
was  awful,  and  the  tragedy  is  that  he  knew  it.  Said  he  didn't  like  to 
read  too  much  good  verse  because  it  made  his  own  look  sorry.  But 
when  a  man  has  given  up  peddling  fish  and  racy  European  pamphlets 
in  order  to  study  for  the  ministry,  and  neither  the  ministry  nor  the 
melodrama  pays,  he  can't  be  blamed,  especially  if  he  has  the  appetite 
of  an  ox  and  the  soul  of  a  poet,  for  going  to  work  for  anyone  as  poet 
laureate.  Lord  Dexter  outfitted  him  in  a  long  black  cloak  with  gold 
stars  on  the  lapels,  and  fringe,  and  a  black  under  dress,  a  huge  cocked 
hat,  and  a  gold-headed  cane.  There  was  a  great  row  about  the  fringe: 
Jonathan  refused  to  wear  it,  Lord  Dexter  pooh-poohed.  Pooh-poohed 
a  poet  laureate!  Still,  Maecenas  was  Maecenas:  Jonathan  wore  the 
fringe. 

Timothy  Dexter  was  a  leather-dresser,  born  in  Maiden  in  1743. 
Treating  leather  to  simulate  "morocco"  was  a  new  art,  which  he 
mastered,  and  which,  on  account  of  the  demand  for  "morocco"  for 

95 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

women's  shoes,  built  him  a  nice  fortune.  He  married  a  thrifty  widow, 
who  had  a  little  huckster  business  of  her  own.  They  emerged  from  the 
period  of  the  Revolution  with  a  son  and  daughter,  and  a  few  thousand 
dollars.  Continental  money  had  dropped  to  two-and-sixpence  on  the 
pound,  and  the  securities  of  Massachusetts  issued  to  support  the 
money  had  tumbled  to  the  same  depths.  John  Hancock  and  Thomas 
Russel,  Bostonians  of  large  fortunes,  bought  in  many  of  these  secur 
ities  to  oblige  their  friends  and  to  hearten  the  public's  morale,  which 
was  as  low  as  its  money.  Timothy  Dexter  heard  of  it,  and  risked 
every  loose  dollar  he  had  in  the  same  investment.  Then  Hamilton's 
funding  system  went  into  operation  and  made  him  a  wealthy  man, 
who  need  never  dress  another  hide  as  long  as  he  lived. 

He  had  gambled  that  the  United  States  Constitution  was  a 
fixture,  and  he  had  won.  He  played  more  money  on  the  same  color, 
and  won  again  and  again.  Charles  town,  still  convalescing  from  a 
severe  fire,  was  not  to  the  liking  of  this  new-laid  magnate.  He  moved 
to  Newburyport,  after  Salem  and  Boston  the  busiest  port  in  the  Com 
monwealth.  He  bought  two  fine  estates,  occupied  one  for  a  short 
time,  and  then  moved  to  the  other.  As  the  property  of  a  prominent 
merchant  it  had  been  one  of  the  fine  houses  of  a  community  of  steady, 
prosperous  people,  whose  philosophy  was  drawn  from  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  education  from  the  Three  R's,  and  deportment  from  a  rigid 
Puritan  ancestry.  Into  its  complacent  calm  Timothy  Dexter  came 
bellowing  like  a  bull  in  a  china  shop,  and  proceeded  to  build  the 
china  shop  about  him. 

You  may  have  wondered  about  the  source  of  the  iron-dog-and- 
Diana  tendency  on  the  lawns  of  our  captains  of  industry.  It  dates 
from  Lord  Dexter,  and  in  justice  to  him  it  should  be  said  that  he  set 

a  mark  that  neither  posterity  nor  Adolphus  Busch  nor  Carl  Hagen- 

96 


THE     TIMOTHY     DEXTER     MANSION 

beck  nor  Ex-Senator  Clark  could  begin  to  approach.  They  may  have 
paid  more  for  their  cupolas  and  summer-houses  and  plaster-of-Paris 
bubchen,  but  Timothy  Dexter,  the  self-made  lord,  leather-dresser, 
landscape  gardener  and  architect,  finished  the  race  with  a  permanent 
world's  record  before  they  were  born.  He  took  a  square  colonial 
house  of  straight  and  dignified  proportions,  polished  it  with  bright 
paint,  and  set  gilt  balls  and  railings  and  minarets  upon  its  roof,  till 
from  the  sea  it  looked  like  a  Christmas  tree  gone  mad.  There  was  a 
magnificent  garden  between  the  house  and  the  highway,  full  of  flowers 
and  fruit  that  were  the  envy  of  a  community  of  husbandmen,  but 
mere  nature  was  not  allowed  to  go  on  unassisted. 

"Hear  me,  good  Lord,"  he  wrote.  "I  am  agoing  to  let  your  chil 
dren  know  now,  good  Lord,  what  has  been  in  the  world  a  great  ways 
back — not  old  Plymouth,  but  stop  to  Adam  and  Eve." 

Accordingly  there  rose  in  the  garden  clusters  of  single  columns, 
and  groups  of  wooden  arches,  about  fifteen  feet  high,  and  presently 
the  astonished  natives  of  Newburyport  saw  them  capped  with  wooden 
effigies.  Before  the  main  doorway  was  a  Roman  arch,  and  upon  it, 
reading  from  left  to  right,  John  Adams,  George  Washington,  Thomas 
Jefferson — all  life  size,  with  John  Adams  uncovered  because  Dexter 
would  not  permit  anyone  to  stand  at  Washington's  right  with  his 
hat  on.  Jefferson  he  thought  was  a  trifle  obscure,  so  he  engaged 
an  artist  to  paint  " Declaration  of  Independence"  upon  the  scroll 
in  its  author's  wooden  hand.  The  artist  had  lashed  himself  to  the 
column,  had  spaced  the  lettering,  and  had  painted  the  letters  "DEC-," 
when  Lord  Timothy,  squinting  up  from  below,  remarked: 

'That's  not  the  way  to  spell  'Constitution'!"  ; 

"You  don't  want  the  Constitution,"  called  the  artist.  "You 
want  'Declaration  of  Independence'!" 

97 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

"I  want  'Constitution'!"  roared  Dexter,  "and  'Constitution'  I 
will  have!" 

His  recollection  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  foggy, 
but  he  knew  that  he  had  made  most  of  his  money  by  the  adhesive 
properties  of  the  Constitution,  and  he  was  not  going  back  on  his  talis 
man  now.  The  artist  refused  to  make  the  statue  ridiculous,  and 
Dexter  charged  into  the  house,  charged  out  with  a  loaded  pistol,  and 
as  the  artist  left  across-country,  fired,  missed  the  artist — but  hit  the 
house. 

Over  in  a  corner  of  the  garden  stood  an  Indian  chieftain,  next  to 
him  William  Pitt,  and  beyond  the  two  the  martial  figure  of  General 
Morgan.  Morgan  was  not  quite  satisfactory,  so  a  few  coats  of 
paint  made  him  over  into  Bonaparte.  The  Goddess  of  Fame,  Louis 
XVI,  John  Jay,  the  King  of  Russia,  Solomon,  Venus,  the  Governor 
of  New  Hampshire — these  were  a  few  of  the  forty  "immortals"  in 
his  garden  of  celebrities.  In  a  prominent  position  stood  a  portrait 
in  pine  of  Lord  Dexter  himself,  labeled  "I  am  the  greatest  man  in  the 
EAST."  Four  lions,  two  couchant,  two  passant,  stood  guard  beside 
him  to  prove  it.  This  caption  originally  included  the  North,  South 
and  West,  and  what  sudden  access  of  modesty  caused  him  to  censor 
it  is  a  buried  secret.  When  the  hurricane  of  1815  toppled  most  of 
the  figures  from  their  pinnacles,  they  were  sold  at  auction.  Pitt 
brought  one  dollar,  Fame  five,  the  Traveling  Preacher  fifty  cents, 
the  Indian  chief  was  set  up  in  a  cornfield  to  scare  crows,  and  Lord 
Timothy,  the  greatest  man  in  the  East,  found  no  bidders.  That 
is  fame. 

His  gallery  was  the  product  of  expert  wood-carvers  in  Newbury- 
port  and  Salem,  men  who  were  turning  out  creditable  work  for  the 

figureheads  of  the  vast  merchant  fleet  that  made  Salem  a  port  known 

98 


THE     TIMOTHY     DEXTER     MANSION 

round  the  world.  It  cost  him  not  a  cent  less  than  $15,000,  twice  the 
price  he  paid  for  the  estate.  Upon  the  interior  of  the  house  he  lavished 
the  same  attention,  and  imported  from  France  the  last  word  in  flam 
boyant  furniture,  voluptuous  draperies,  and  generally  meretricious 
objets  d'art.  His  agents  had  more  taste  than  he,  to  be  sure,  but  if 
a  worthy  piece  found  its  way  into  the  house,  it  was  sure  to  be  stained 
and  damaged  in  the  next  carouse.  In  his  business  dealings  with 
Hancock  and  Russel  he  had  caught  glimpses  of  their  libraries,  and  it 
occurred  to  him  that  the  greatest  man  in  the  East  should  own  fine 
books,  so  he  bought  them  by  the  linear  yard  in  costly  bindings.  He 
rarely  read  them,  and  guests  relieved  him  of  the  finer  engravings  with 
which  they  were  illustrated.  In  the  same  way  he  filled  the  house  with 
paintings,  which  were  so  bad  that  not  even  his  guests  cared  to  steal 
them.  The  dearest  of  all  his  hobbies  was  a  collection  of  clocks  and 
watches.  Once  a  week  they  were  set  running  and  regulated;  each  day 
he  visited  them  all,  and  gave  a  word  of  encouragement  or  censure  to 
each,  from  the  great  Dutch  fellow  who  prophesied  approaching  rain, 
to  the  daintiest  enameled  chronometer  in  the  hilt  of  a  French  fan. 
The  fruits  and  blossoms  of  his  garden  were  as  keen  a  source  of  satis 
faction  to  him  as  they  were  to  the  maidens  and  urchins  of  the  town. 
After  a  few  experimental  visits  had  revealed  the  clumsy  vulgarity  of 
his  attentions  to  all  women,  nice  girls  never  went  to  see  Dexter's 
museum.  To  the  small  boy,  however,  he  was  the  personification 
of  all  that  was  grand  and  fantastic;  furthermore,  they  could  scent 
his  berries  and  plums  and  melons  for  a  radius  of  five  miles,  no  matter 
which  way  the  wind  blew. 

It  is  quite  right  to  assume  that  even  a  successful  speculation  in 
government  paper  could  hardly  finance  the  upkeep  of  such  an  out 
rageously  extravagant  menage.  Where  did  the  money  come  from? 

99 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

Everyone  in  New  England,  as  his  notoriety  spread,  asked  the  same 
question.  The  most  picturesque  reply  is  from  his  own  pen — a  chap 
ter  from  a  tract  called  "Pickle  for  the  Knowing  Ones,"  which  he 
wrote  and  published,  and  which,  with  a  few  italicized  explanatory 
notes,  follows: 

HOW  DID  TIMOTHY  DEXTER  GET  HIS  MONEY  ye  (he) 
says:  by  ing  whale  bone  for  staing  (staying)  for  ships  .  in  grosing 
(gross)  three  hundred  &  40  tons — bort  all  in  boston,  salum  and  all 
in  Noue  york,  under  Cover  .  oppenly  told  them  for  my  ships; 
they  all  laffed.  so  I  had  at  my  oan  pris.  I  had  four  Counning  men 
for  Rounners;  thay  found  the  home,  as  I  told  them  to  act  the  fool  . 
I  was  full  of  Cash  .  I  had  nine  tun  of  silver  on  hand  at  that  time — 
all  that  time  the  Creaters  (creatures)  more  or  less  laffing.  it  spread 
very  fast  .  here  is  the  Rub — in  fifty  days  thay  smelt  a  Rat — found 
where  it  was  gone  to  Nouebry  Port — spekkelaters  swarming  like 
hell  houns — to  be  short  with  it  I  made  seventey  five  per  sent — one 
tun  and  a  halfe  of  silver  on  hand  and  over- 
one  more  spect — Drole  a  Nuf — I  Dreamed  of  warming  pans 
three  nites;  that  they  would  doue  in  the  west  inges  (Indies)  .  (He 
did  not  dream  this,  but  was  put  up  to  it  by  the  chaffing  of  a  group  of 
mischievous  ship-clerks  about  the  Port.  Warming  pans  were  about 
as  necessary  in  the  West  Indies  as  coals  in  Newcastle.}  I  got  no  more 
than  fortey  two  thousand — put  them  in  nine  vessels  for  difrent  ports, 
that  tuck  good  hold.  (It  did:  to  the  astonishment  of  New  England, 
the  warming  pans  were  found  to  be  excellent  utensils  in  which  to  roast 
coffee,  and  the  lids  equally  useful  in  skimming  hot  sugar  syrup.)  I 
cleared  sevinty  nine  per  sent  .  the  pans  thay  made  use  of  them  for 
Coucking — blessed  good  in  Deade  (indeed)  missey  (monsieur)  got 
nise  handel — very  good  masser  ("Massa")  for  Coukey  (cooking;  he 

IOO 


THE     TIMOTHY     PEXTER     MANSION 

here  reproduces  the  dialect  of  the  French  and  British  West  Indian 
negroes.)  Now  burn  my  fase  the  best  thing  I  Ever  see  in  borne  days  . 
I  found  I  was  very  luckky  in  spekkelation. 

I  Dreamed  that  the  good  book  was  Run  Down  in  this  Countrey 
nine  years  gone,  so  low  as  halfe  prise  and  Dull  at  that — the  bibel  I 
means  .  I  had  the  Ready  Cash  .  by  holl  sale  I  bort  twelve  per  sent 
under  halfe  pris:  thay  cost  fortey  one  sents  Each  bibbel — twentey 
one  thousand — I  put  them  into  twenty  one  vessels  for  the  west  inges 
and  sent  a  text  that  all  of  them  must  have  one  bibel  in  every  family, 
or  if  not  thay  would  goue  to  hell — and  if  thay  had  Dun  wiked,  flie 
to  the  bibel  and  on  thare  Neas  and  kiss  the  bibel  three  times  and 
look  up  to  heaven  annest  (and  ask)  for  forgivnes,  my  Captteins  all 
had  Compleat  orders — here  Corns  the  good  luck:  I  made  one  hundred 
per  sent  &  littel  over,  then  I  found  I  had  made  money  anuf.  I  hant 
(haven't)  speckalated  sence  old  time,  by  government  secourities  I 
made  forty  seven  thousands  Dolors — that  is  the  old  afare.  Now  I 
toald  the  all,  the  sekrett.  Now  be  still,  let  me  A  lone;  Dont  wonder 
Noe  more  houe  I  got  my  money,  boaz  (boys). 

If  there  were  space  it  could  be  devoted  to  his  successful  corner 
of  the  opium  market,  to  his  land  speculations,  and  to  other  sounder 
investments,  such  as  the  Essex  Merrimack  bridge,  which  kept  his 
coffers  full.  But  there  is  not,  if  we  are  to  have  a  glimpse  of  the 
motley  crew  who  fawned  about  him  and  lived  at  his  expense.  Plum- 
mer,  the  poet  laureate  and  jingle-monger  we  have  seen,  Plummer, 
who  told  Dexter  that  the  Druids  crowned  their  laureates  with  mistle 
toe,  and  whom  Dexter  duly  crowned,  amidst  great  ceremony,  with 
parsley,  there  being  no  mistletoe  in  the  garden.  Then  there  was  a 
Newburyport  schoolmaster  who  fell  out  of  the  graces  of  the  town 
because  he  took  his  pupils  to  walk  in  the  fields  and  taught  them  the 


IOI 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

names  of  the  birds  and  flowers,  used  charts  and  globes  in  geography 
lessons,  performed  simple  chemical  experiments  which  the  parents 
soundly  suspected  were  tricks,  and  believed  in  the  lecture  system 
more  than  in  the  birch  rod.  With  a  smattering  of  astronomy  and 
a  fertile  imagination  this  man  attached  himself  to  Dexter  in  the 
capacity  of  astrologer  and  chief  confidant.  He  was  probably  in 
league  with  Madam  Hooper  and  Moll  Pitcher,  two  seeresses  of  rich 
local  reputation,  for  Dexter  often  called  upon  them  to  solve  his  future. 
There  was  Burley,  called  Dwarf  Billy,  a  giant  wrestler  who  stood  six- 
feet-and-seven-inches  in  his  socks  when  he  wore  them;  Dexter  hired 
him  as  a  sort  of  watchman,  porter  and  body-guard,  to  do  his  fighting 
for  him.  It  was  Dwarf  Billy  whom  Dexter  called  upon  to  put  a  tipsy 
sea-captain  off  the  place,  after  he  had  wagered  that  no  two  men  Dexter 
had  could  put  him  out.  Looking  up  to  Burley's  summit,  the  sailor 
put  his  guinea  in  his  lordship's  hands,  saying:  "By  Jupiter,  if  this 
is  your  dwarf,  how  big  are  your  giants?" 

Hogarth  never  drew  a  stranger  company.  It  was  downright 
Elizabethan  in  its  romantic  depravity.  Barred  from  the  company 
of  intelligent,  modest  people  by  the  pride  which  would  not  permit 
him  to  play  the  hypocrite,  Dexter  brought  his  society  to  him,  and 
cared  very  little  about  its  ancestry,  so  long  as  it  gave  him  adulation 
and  echoed  his  tipsy  amiability.  The  house  was  infested  with  shady 
adventurers  and  blowzy  females  from  the  ports,  come  to  gather  a 
little  money  and  pass  on;  no  fine  day  went  by  but  travelers  came  to 
see  this  remarkable  man  at  close  hand,  to  flatter  him,  to  hear  him  tell 
the  story  of  conferring  upon  himself  the  title  of  "Lord";  to  carry  some 
souvenir  of  his  tireless  eccentricity  back  to  the  folks  at  home,  and 
you  may  believe  that  it  lost  nothing  in  the  telling.  The  riff-raff  of 
the  town  attended  a  funeral  which  he  advertised  in  his  honor,  and 

102 


THE     TIMOTHY     DEXTER     MANSION 

which  he  watched  from  behind  the  curtains  of  an  upper  window  while 
a  heavy  mahogany  coffin  he  had  bought  was  borne  to  the  summer 
house  where  he  expected  some  day  to  rest.  He  was  annoyed  that  his 
epileptic  son,  being  drunk  enough  to  weep  lavishly,  was  the  only  one 
who  mourned,  and  that  Plummer  did  not  put  enough  genuine  fire 
into  the  funeral  oration. 

Once  in  a  while  a  visitor  crossed  him,  and  he  rushed  to  the  house 
for  a  pistol;  one  such  adventure  cost  him  a  term  in  the  Ipswich  gaol, 
though  his  aim  was  so  poor  that  he  never  hit  anyone.  For  a  time  he 
held  public  office,  that  of  "informer  of  deer,"  which  carried  the  duty 
of  arousing  the  town  when  deer  were  seen  in  the  vicinity.  Even  the 
beasts  of  the  wilderness  laughed  at  him — no  deer  ever  ventured  near 
during  his  term.  With  books  to  read  but  no  mind  to  read  them  with, 
his  wife  long  since  fled  from  his  home,  his  son  half-mad  and  his 
daughter  wholly  so,  Dexter,  feigning  a  feverish  interest  in  affairs  of 
which  he  knew  absolutely  nothing,  became  an  object  of  contemptuous 
amusement  even  to  the  gypsies  of  Dogtown  who  passed  his  house  to 
peddle  berries.  Today  the  rankness  and  the  nearness  of  him  has 
passed,  and  it  is  hard  to  find  for  Timothy  Dexter  any  emotion  be 
yond  that  of  profound  pity. 

He  died  in  1806  and  was  buried  in  a  simple  grave  in  a  public 
cemetery.  A  sensible,  methodical  will  disposed  of  his  property,  and 
the  house  passed  into  other  hands,  which  cleared  out  his  forest  of 
statuary,  tore  down  the  gilt  balls,  and  took  the  masquerade  costume 
off  the  building  whose  dignity  he  had  so  unceremoniously  insulted. 
In  the  process  Timothy  Dexter,  "Lord"  by  his  own  acclamation, 
has  been  sunk  without  trace.  The  house  today  is  quite  the  most  im 
posing  in  a  town  unusually  blessed  with  Colonial  homes,  but  it  is  not 

Dexter's.     Dexter  is  wholly  dead. 

103 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

His  greatest  work,  the  'Tickle  for  the  Knowing  Ones,"  must 
never  die.  Superlatives  can  damn  it  here  forever,  and  any  attempt 
to  dissect  its  philosophy  must  await  the  collaboration  of  a  specialist 
in  the  psychology  of  insanity,  a  student  of  Chaucerian  spelling,  and 
an  apostle  of  tolerance.  When  those  three  meet,  we  shall  under 
stand  the  man.  Meanwhile,  the  "Pickle"  is  worth  reading. 

To  his  second  edition  he  added  this  postscript: 

fouder  (further)  mister  Printer  the  Nowing  ones  complane  of 
my  book  the  fust  edition  had  no  stops  I  put  in  A  Nuf  here  and  thay 
may  pepper  and  salt  it  as  thay  plese 


104 


THE  KENDALL  HOUSE 


THE  KENDALL  HOUSE 

A  WHITE  house  with  solid  vertigris  blinds  stands  comfortably 
beside  the  Post  road.  There  is  a  little  old  cannon  on  the  lawn, 
a  sad  bell-mouthed  field  piece  with  its  jaw  jutted  fiercely  out  to  bark 
at  any  British  man-o'-war  that  presumes  to  come  back  up  the  Hud 
son.  A  green  ridge  rises  behind  the  house,  setting  it  off  like  Wedg 
wood  ware,  and  a  gentle  brook  idles  down  the  slope  toward  the  river. 

Set  in  a  jog  of  the  stone  wall  at  the  highway  is  a  memorial  tab 
let  which  has  evidently  gone  unnoticed  by  the  gentlemen  who  write 
histories  for  primary  schools — who  are  supposed  to  watch  the  fires 
on  our  national  shrines,  and  to  toss  a  bright  epithet,  an  apt  name, 
or  a  bit  of  patriotic  tinder  on  the  coals.  In  missing  this  Dobbs  Ferry 
house  they  are  clearly  guilty  of  neglect  of  duty.  It  has  a  story  that 
goes  clear  down  to  the  stuff  every  American  believes  he  is  made  of. 
If  we  borrow  a  stock  phrase  from  the  supply  of  the  school  historian 
and  call  this  house  the  "Birthplace  of  Victory"  we  shall  not  be  far 
from  the  fact,  nor  serving  ill  a  spot  which  recalls  with  rich  significance 
the  travail  in  which  our  nation  was  born. 

In  1780  there  were  three  invading  British  armies  rooted  on  the 
Atlantic  coast:  Clinton  had  driven  Washington  off  Manhattan  island 
in  1776  and  had  already  held  the  city  for  four  years;  Cornwallis  made 
Yorktown  a  base  for  expeditions  into  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas, 
and  Tarleton  held  Charleston.  For  four  years  the  enemy  had  hoped 
to  effect  a  junction  between  his  forces  in  Canada  and  those  in  New 

York,  and  the  Hudson  was  to  be  his  highway.     For  four  years  Wash- 

107 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

ington  had  hovered  like  an  eagle  over  the  river,  wheeling  now  into 
Westchester,  now  swooping  upon  Jersey.  Inadequately  equipped,  he 
dared  not  take  the  offensive.  He  had  to  be  content  to  wait  for  the 
time  when  Clinton  might  relax  his  vigilance  upon  the  city,  then  to 
strike,  brilliantly  and  savagely,  but  the  sum  of  these  maneuvers  was 
only  to  harass  the  enemy,  not  to  unseat  him.  Twice  since  Washing 
ton's  time  has  his  fortitude  been  matched  in  our  history:  once  by  Lin 
coln,  and  once  by  Lee.  Once,  in  our  own  lifetime,  it  has  been  equalled 
by  the  French  nation.  It  was  from  France,  in  1780,  that  our  relief 
ultimately  came. 

After  four  years  of  war,  with  British  patrols  making  frequent 
raids  through  Yonkers  and  over  the  upper  acres  of  the  Philipse  estate, 
with  British  warships  plying  up  and  down  the  Hudson  at  will  past 
the  silenced  batteries  of  Forts  Washington  and  Lee,  with  the  Cow 
boys  and  Skinners  of  both  armies  making  life  wretched  throughout 
the  neutral  ground  in  which  Dobbs  Ferry  lay,  the  village  was  in  ill 
temper.  It  lies  opposite  the  northern  end  of  the  Palisades,  and  while 
the  British  held  New  York  it  was  the  most  southerly  ferry  safe  for 
American  despatch  riders  from  Westchester  County  to  Jersey  and 
the  south — a  vital  link  in  the  chain  of  communication  between  the 
scattered  states.  So  Dobbs  Ferry  saw  plenty  of  skirmishing.  Earth 
works  were  thrown  up  in  the  village;  the  remains  of  an  ancient  re 
doubt  may  be  discovered  today  after  patient  search  near  Broadway 
and  Livingston  Avenue,  and  the  Livingston  mansion,  the  most  pre 
tentious  house  in  town,  asked  neither  exemption  nor  privilege  and 
surrounded  itself  with  trenches.  No  one  knew  when  the  enemy  might 
advance  in  force  up  the  Albany  Post  Road,  and  in  Dobbs  Ferry's 
1780- temper,  no  one  proposed  to  let  him  march  without  a  fight. 

Word   had   gone   through    the   states   that   Lafayette,  the   gay 

108 


THE      KENDALL      HOUSE 

French  lad  who  came  over  to  fight  with  Washington,  had  gone 
home.  "He's  young,"  men  said.  "It  was  only  a  lark  for  him.  He's 
had  enough.  'Leave  of  absence'  was  it!  Trench  leave,'  more  likely." 
Lafayette  was  young,  but  he  had  not  had  enough.  How  a  youth 
of  twenty-two  petitioned  the  court  of  France  for  an  army,  a  fleet  and 
a  generous  loan  for  the  states  we  need  not  inquire.  He  got  every 
thing  he  asked  and  came  back  to  tell  General  Washington  so  and  to 
confer  upon  him  Louis  Sixteenth's  commission  as  lieutenant-general 
of  the  Armies  of  France  and  admiral  of  His  Majesty's  Navy. 

In  1918  the  United  States  transport  Leviathan,  seven  days  out 
of  New  York,  made  the  harbor  of  Brest  and  set  ten  thousand  fight 
ing  men  ashore.  In  the  harbor  of  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  on  July 
11,  1780  eleven  French  warships  and  thirty- two  transports,  three 
months  out  of  Brest,  set  six  thousand  fighting  men  of  France  upon 
American  soil.  Ponder  on  those  figures:  six  thousand  men  are  the 
complement  of  two  modern  regiments,  the  half  of  a  bitter  day's 
casualty  list;  six  thousand  men  were  the  Army  of  France,  the  Army 
of  Deliverance.  After  they  had  thawed  a  cool  reception,  they  were 
welcomed  as  such,  and  while  the  Comte  de  Rochambeau,  at  their 
head,  was  feted  by  the  dignitaries  of  Newport,  his  disciplined  troops 
pitched  their  tents  in  the  Rhode  Island  orchards,  and  as  their  com 
mander  proudly  reported  to  their  King,  never  even  robbed  the  fruit- 
trees! 

Cumulative  bad  luck  camped  down  simultaneously  on  the 
American  cause.  Scurvy  among  the  French  troops  prevented  their 
moving  to  attack  New  York.  Clinton  made  a  demonstration  against 
them  at  Newport  until  Washington  frightened  him  back  indoors. 
Rochambeau  found  difficulty  in  conveying  his  ideas  of  strategy  to 

American  headquarters  in  Jersey,  and  it  took  all  of  Lafayette's  tact 

109 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

to  keep  the  forces  in  contented  alliance.  At  last,  when  the  summer 
was  nearly  gone,  Washington  arranged  a  council  of  war  at  Hartford. 

The  operations  of  the  allied  armies  planned  at  that  conference 
hinged  upon  the  co-operation  of  a  second  French  land  force  and  the 
French  fleet.  The  land  force  was  even  then  bottled  up  in  Brest  by 
British  warships,  the  French  admiral  was  in  the  West  Indies  and 
showed  no  signs  of  coming  north.  To  make  matters  worse,  there 
was  brewing  over  on  the  Hudson  a  plot  which  Washington  later  called 
"one  of  the  severest  strokes  that  could  have  been  meditated  against 
us."  It  was  so  well  known  among  the  British  that  it  now  seems 
incredible  that  no  hint  of  warning  had  filtered  through  the  Neutral 
Ground  to  American  headquarters.  London  gossip  predicted  openly 
throughout  the  summer  a  coup  which  would  shortly  bring  this  up 
start  rebellion  to  its  knees. 

One  morning  in  late  September  four  farmer  boys  from  West- 
chester  undertook  to  watch  the  Albany  post-road  north  of  Tarrytown, 
and  to  see  that  no  Tory  patrols  drove  stolen  cattle  southward.  They 
halted  a  well-dressed  civilian  and  searched  him.  In  his  stockings 
they  found  a  plan  of  the  fortifications  at  West  Point,  an  inventory 
of  ammunition,  full  directions  for  attacking  and  taking  the  forts, 
and  a  resume  of  General  Washington's  most  recent  statement  of 
the  condition  and  prospects  of  the  American  cause.  It  was  suspicious 
enough  to  find  these  papers  on  an  unknown  civilian,  but  when  he 
proved  to  be  Major  John  Andre,  adjutant-general  of  the  British  Army, 
and  when  inspection  showed  that  the  last  two  documents  were  in  the 
handwriting  of  Benedict  Arnold,  an  American  major-general  in  com 
mand  at  West  Point,  the  matter  smelled  rankly  of  treason. 

Washington  was  returning  from  Hartford  to  headquarters  when 

he  was  diverted  to  West  Point.     An  unexplainable  bit  of  stupidity 

no 


THE      KENDALL      HOUSE 

had  allowed  Arnold  to  learn  of  Andre's  capture,  and  when  Washing 
ton  arrived  at  Arnold's  headquarters  opposite  West  Point  he  found 
the  traitor's  young  wife  in  a  state  of  collapse  and  Arnold  himself  fled 
to  the  British  frigate  " Vulture,"  which  was  already  dropping  down 
stream  out  of  range. 

From  the  upper  windows  of  the  Livingston  house,  in  Dobbs 
Ferry,  you  may  look  northwest  over  the  roofs  of  the  town  where  Andre 
and  Arnold  had  secretly  met  and  plotted  to  betray  the  United  States. 
Across  the  river  you  may  see  the  faint  outlines  of  the  village  of  Tappan, 
where  Andre  was  held  prisoner,  and  where  George  Washington  shared 
his  breakfast  with  the  convicted  spy.  At  the  foot  of  the  hill  in  Dobbs 
Ferry  you  may  see  the  landing  where  a  group  of  British  dignitaries 
came  to  plead  with  General  Green  for  Andre's  life.  If  you  had  been 
in  Tappan  the  next  morning  you  might  have  seen  Andre  walk  to  the 
gibbet,  adjust  the  noose  firmly  about  his  own  neck,  and  heard  him 
say:  "It  will  be  but  a  momentary  pang."  With  a  record  that  in 
cluded  secret  service  during  the  siege  of  Charleston,  Andre  was 
undoubtedly  a  spy,  but  if  you  had  watched  dry-eyed  as  this  man  met 
death  you  would  have  been  lonesome,  for  there  were  plenty  of  honest 
tears  from  the  American  officers  who  stood  by  and  saw  him  hang. 

With  the  plot  exploded,  Arnold  a  turncoat,  Andre  dead,  the 
cause  at  least  was  safe.  "Whom  can  we  trust  now?"  asked  Wash 
ington,  and  proceeded  to  find  out.  In  spite  of  a  wide-spread  feeling 
of  contempt  for  Arnold,  his  desertion  made  an  impression  upon  the 
faint-hearts  in  both  armies.  In  an  effort  to  stiffen  the  morale  of  his 
men,  and  somewhat  stung  by  the  vengefulness  of  Arnold's  threat  in 
a  letter  presented  at  the  Dobbs  Ferry  conference  that  he  would  make 
reprisals  if  Andr6  was  killed,  Washington  conceived  the  idea  of  kid 
napping  Arnold  in  New  York.  The  sergeant-major  detailed  for  this 

in 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

bold  stroke  had  the  worst  possible  luck,  missed  Arnold  by  a  half-hour, 
and  landed  on  board  a  transport  filled  with  a  corps  of  deserters,  bound 
for  Virginia,  and  commanded  by  the  traitor  himself. 

By  June  of  1781  the  French  army  was  ready  for  action.  They 
marched  across  Connecticut,  and  pitched  their  tents  upon  the  West- 
chester  hills.  That  lively,  attractive  young  aide-de-camp  who  danced 
with  the  girls  of  Westchester  was  a  chap  named  Berthier,  destined  to 
become  field  marshal  under  Napoleon  and  Prince  of  Wagram;  the 
tall,  gallant  Saxon  aide  was  the  Count  de  Fersen,  later  commander 
of  the  Swiss  body-guard  of  Louis  XVI.  Custine  commanded  the 
Saintonge  regiment — Custine  who  had  served  under  Frederick  the 
Great;  on  the  ridge  east  of  the  Nepperhan  were  the  Viomenil  brothers 
—Count  and  Baron,  soldiers  both;  over  on  the  hill  above  White  Plains 
was  the  charming  Lauzun — he  was  guillotined  a  few  years  later. 
"Gentleman  rankers  out  on  a  spree,"  and  leading  as  gay  an  army 
of  crimson-  and  white-  and  pink-  and  yellow-  and  blue-  and  green- 
clad  troops  as  Europe  could  put  in  the  field.  What  shortcomings 
they  found  with  the  entertainment  their  American  allies  offered,  what 
irritation  they  felt  at  being  served  beef,  potatoes,  lamb  and  chicken 
on  one  plate,  they  forgot  in  the  real  comradeship  that  sprang  up. 
New  days  were  coming.  New  York,  the  stronghold,  was  to  be  beaten 
down  by  these  keen  French,  and  these  dogged  Americans,  and  Henry 
Clinton  might  well  beware. 

Washington  moved  his  headquarters  into  the  Livingston  house 
at  Dobbs  Ferry.  There  on  July  6,  1781  Rochambeau  met  and  joined 
him  and  for  the  first  time  the  armies  were  formally  allied.  The  two 
commanders  sat  late  over  the  plans  for  the  effort  which  was  presently 
to  make  Henry  Clinton  shout  to  Cornwallis  and  Tarleton  for  help. 
In  the  back  of  Washington's  mind  was  a  shrewd  manoeuvre,  and  he 

112 


THE      KENDALL      HOUSE 

kept  it  in  the  back  of  his  mind,  for  if  a  plan  was  to  be  good  enough  to 
fool  the  enemy,  it  should  be  good  enough  to  deceive  his  own  men. 
Clinton  was  to  be  thoroughly  scared  by  a  demonstration  by  the  com 
bined  armies  against  New  York.  If  he  called  for  reinforcements  from 
the  south,  good;  if  they  came,  better  yet.  For  it  was  not  Clinton  in 
New  York  whom  Washington  wanted,  nor  Tarleton  in  Charleston, 
but  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown,  the  link  between  the  two.  And  Wash 
ington  knew  that  this  was  to  be  his  last  gamble  with  fate. 

On  July  18  Rochambeau  accompanied  him  on  a  reconnoissance 
of  the  enemy's  positions  north  of  New  York.  What  they  saw  led 
them  to  throw  a  protective  cordon  of  troops  across  the  peninsula  of 
Westchester,  from  the  Sound  to  the  Hudson,  to  keep  the  British 
patrols  from  leaking  out.  Ten  days  later  Washington  heard  that 
three  British  regiments  from  South  Carolina  had  been  sent  to 
Clinton's  relief.  Back  of  his  calm  eyes  his  brain  was  humming  with 
excitement.  He  wrote  letters  about  his  plans  for  attacking  New 
York  and  then  saw  to  it  that  those  letters  fell  into  the  enemy's  hands. 
When  the  British  approached  the  American  lines  they  found  them 
preparing  for  battle.  Washington  allowed  his  engineers  to  survey 
camp  sites  and  build  brick  ovens  within  sight  of  the  enemy's  scouts. 
And  then,  on  August  3,  a  travel-worn  messenger  arrived  with  a  letter 
from  Lafayette. 

"DeGrasse  is  sailing  with  the  French  fleet  from  Santo  Domingo 
for  Chesapeake  Bay"  was  its  message.  The  moment  had  come. 

To  the  Livingston  house  he  summoned  Robert  Morris,  who 
had  never  failed  before,  and  who  must  not  fail  now;  and  with  him 
Richard  Peters,  the  acting  Secretary  of  State.  Washington  demanded 
men.  Turning  to  Peters,  he  asked:  "What  can  you  do?" 

"With  money,  everything.     Without  it,   nothing,"  replied  the 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

Secretary  of  State,  and  looked  questioningly  toward  Morris.  The 
banker  produced  a  loan  of  $30,000.  To  Washington  it  was  as  good 
at  that  moment  as  a  million,  for  it  meant  pay  and  food  for  his  men, 
a  promise  of  more  men,  and  supplies  for  a  forced  march.  And  the 
forced  march  was  imminent.  Rochambeau  came  down  from  his  head 
quarters  up  over  the  hill  and  the  two  laid  their  plans.  On  the  eleventh 
3000  Hessians  from  Cornwallis'  forces  arrived  to  defend  New  York. 
On  August  25  all  but  3000  men  of  the  entire  American  army  and  the 
whole  French  force  crossed  the  Hudson  and  were  half-way  to  Phila 
delphia  before  Sir  Henry  Clinton  knew  that  he  had  been  tricked. 

Two  months  later  Cornwallis  surrendered  to  the  Allied  armies, 
and  there  was  no  more  British  army  between  New  York  and  Charles 
ton.  The  plan  which  first  saw  daylight  in  the  Livingston  House  at 
Dobbs  Ferry  ended  the  Revolution. 

It  was  poetic  justice,  therefore,  that  in  this  house  eighteen  months 
later  should  occur  the  formal  evacuation  of  the  United  States  by 
the  British.  On  the  afternoon  of  May  6,  1783,  two  barges  landed 
at  the  Ferry.  In  one  was  George  Washington,  Commander-in-Chief; 
in  the  other  Governor  Clinton  of  New  York  State.  Presently  a  sloop- 
of-war  appeared,  and  from  it  landed  General  Sir  Guy  Carleton, 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  British  Expeditionary  Forces.  The  three 
men  met  in  the  front  room  of  the  Livingston  House,  and  at  a  sturdy 
round  walnut  table  which  stands  in  the  house  today  General  Sir  Guy 
Carleton  signed  on  the  dotted  line,  renouncing  a  claim  upon  America 
which  was  first  staked  out  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  Good  Queen 
Bess  would  have  sworn  like  a  lady  at  the  spectacle;  Guy  Carleton, 
instead,  marched  out  between  four  companies  of  American  infantry 
at  present-arms,  saluted  the  flag,  invited  General  Washington  and 

Governor  Clinton  to  dine  aboard  his  sloop,  and  after  an  exceedingly 

114 


THE      KENDALL      HOUSE 

good  dinner  fired  a  seventeen-gun  salute  for  the  guest  who  through 
out  the  war  had  been  scornfully  referred  to  by  Parliament  as  "Geo. 
Washington,  Esqre." 

From  Philip  Livingston,  its  Revolutionary  occupant,  the  house 
passed  into  the  hands  of  Peter  Van  Brugh  Livingston,  a  rich,  right 
eous  and  rigid  citizen  who  was  a  member  of  two  legislatures,  and 
who  acquired  most  of  the  real  estate  in  Dobbs  Ferry.  A  small  parcel 
of  this  real  estate  he  gave  to  the  Episcopal  Church.  When  a  local 
tavern-keeper  applied  for  admission  to  the  church  Van  Brugh  Living 
ston's  influence  and  indignant  protests  almost  kept  the  boniface 
out  of  reach  of  salvation.  The  house  was  purchased  from  Livingston 
by  Stephen  Archer,  a  gentle  Quaker.  His  wife  at  her  death-bed 
promised  him  that  if  he  would  build  a  bay  window  in  the  house  and 
sit  at  that  window  on  a  Friday  night,  she  would  return  to  him.  He 
built  the  bay  window  and  every  Friday  night  for  twenty  years  sat 
peering  out,  straining  his  eyes  to  distinguish  her  ghostly  form  from 
the  shadows  of  the  ancient  horse-chestnut  tree.  This  is  a  true  story 
of  spiritualism:  she  never  came  back.  Stephen  Archer's  daughter 
married  a  Dr.  Hasbrouck  and  the  house  became  his  property  upon 
her  death.  His  fourth  wife  succeeded  in  outliving  him,  and  in  the 
light  of  Van  Brugh  Livingston's  prejudice  against  tavern-keepers,  it 
is  interesting  to  recall  the  latest  episode  in  the  possession  of  the 
ancient  dwelling. 

Messmore  Kendall,  a  lawyer  of  New  York,  was  driving  down 
Broadway  one  morning  when  he  saw  a  sign  in  the  dooryard  of  the 
Hasbrouck  house  advertising  it  for  sale.  He  stopped.  Inquiry  from 
a  woman  who  answered  his  knock  brought  out  the  information  that 
financial  stress  had  forced  the  sale  of  the  house  to  a  brewer  who  pro 
posed  to  open  a  road  house  within  its  sacred  walls.  Mr.  Kendall 

"  "5 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

went  on  to  the  city.  He  learned  from  the  real-estate  brokers  that 
the  title  was  to  be  transferred  to  the  brewer  at  12  o'clock  of  the  follow 
ing  day.  At  12  o'clock  there  was  no  brewer  in  sight.  At  1  o'clock 
Mr.  Kendall  had  bought  the  house.  At  5  o'clock  of  the  same  after 
noon  the  brewer  appeared,  but  the  house  had  been  saved  forever. 

So,  instead  of  the  clash  of  weapons  of  a  dance  orchestra,  the  Liv 
ingston  House  today  hears  the  call  of  the  birds  from  the  garden. 
Instead  of  a  coat  of  scarlet  paint,  a  swinging  tavern-sign,  and  the 
installation  of  new  '  'service  facilities"  the  house  has  undergone  a 
complete  restoration  to  its  early  beauty. 

Where  a  less  knowing  eye  would  have  altered  for  the  sake  of  alter 
ing,  he  has  directed  changes  only  as  they  would  preserve  the  feeling  of 
self-effacing  Colonial  occupancy.  Where  the  austerity  of  the  period 
might  easily  have  been  made  inelastic,  he  has  made  you  sense  the 
vital  nearness  of  the  glorious  immortals  who  were  there.  Where  the 
old  frame  of  the  building  settled  back  after  a  century  of  service  and 
gave  an  informal  tilt  to  the  door-frames,  instead  of  replacing  them 
with  new  he  has  tailored  the  old  doors  a  trifle.  He  has  left  the  old 
floors,  for  flooring  such  as  men  laid  in  those  days  was  not  to  be  dis 
ciplined  for  little  irregularities.  Between  the  drawing  room  and  the 
study  hangs  the  original  front  door,  with  a  lock  three  hands  broad, 
and  the  great  key  that  turned  on  the  invader's  last  good-bye.  Even 
electricity  came  into  the  house  in  a  quiet  disguise.  If  it  is  candle 
light,  and  you  should  peer  into  the  low-studded  dining-room,  with 
its  musket  and  pewter,  and  its  great  fireplace,  you  will  be  forgiven 
if  your  fancy  pictures  a  Continental  cavalryman  bolting  his  supper 
at  the  end  of  the  long  table.  Perfectly  sane  people  have  heard 
Lafayette's  light  step  on  the  stair. 

Given  far  less  to  work  with  than  the  Jumel  Mansion  a  few  miles 

116 


THE      KENDALL      HOUSE 

away,  the  restorer  of  the  Livingston  house  has  avoided  the  error  of 
formalizing  the  restoration.  For  years  he  had  been  collecting  rare 
furniture  for  just  such  an  emergency.  Out  of  the  storage  warehouse 
and  into  the  drawing  room  came  a  pair  of  sofas  and  a  little  table  from 
the  shop  of  Duncan  Phyfe;  two  of  Thomas  Chippendale's  mirrors; 
a  pair  of  girandoles  of  unusual  grace;  a  very  early  and  tinkly  American 
piano;  and  a  dozen  other  things,  each  wearing  a  veil  of  antiquity  over 
her  charms.  Like  a  group  of  delightful  reunited  old  ladies  they  fell 
to  chirruping  and  whispering,  agreeing  that  this  was  so  like  home, 
when  one — and  it  was  probably  one  of  the  mischievous  girandoles, 
who  give  back  your  reflection  askew — suggested  with  a  sparkle  in  her 
eyes:  "Let's  pretend  we  have  always  been  here!"  A  whisper  of  assent 
fled  from  one  to  another.  The  Dutch  clock  in  the  hallway  chimed 
agreement,  the  Queen  Anne  sofa  on  the  landing  heard  and  sighed 
happily,  and  one  of  Washington's  own  chairs  in  the  study,  which  had 
left  Mount  Vernon  a  century  ago,  remarked  that  he  had  always  re 
garded  Dobbs  Ferry  as  a  comfortable  asylum. 

They  will  hush  their  chatter  when  you  come  in,  and  you  cannot 
surprise  them  at  it.  But  on  a  June  night  you  may  sit  outside  and 
watch  the  moon  rise  through  the  tracery  of  an  old  wistaria  on  the 
south  portico.  Listen  sharply:  when  a  white  parrokeet  waddles  in 
from  the  blue  shadows  of  the  garden,  and  a  voice  is  singing,  and 
there  is  the  lightest  feather  of  air  moving,  it  will  bring  their  whisper 
through  the  window  to  you.  The  illusion  is  yours;  they  are  at  home, 
among  their  own. 


117 


THE  LONGFELLOW  HOUSE 


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THE  LONGFELLOW  HOUSE 


"F~  "^HE  moonlight  poet,"  a  clever  Frenchman  called  him,  "hav- 
JL  ing  little  passion,  but  a  calmness  of  attitude  which  approaches 
majesty."  In  a  single  deft  pass  of  verbal  legerdemain  he  conjures 
about  the  venerable  head  of  Longfellow  all  the  cool  alluring  mystery 
that  veils  a  far-away  mountain  peak  at  night.  He  waves  the  magic 
word  "moonlight"  and  the  sun  puffs  out.  In  one  stroke  he  has 
drawn  a  caricature  which  is  not  a  character.  The  brightness  of 
words  tempted  him  into  an  error  of  drawing  at  which  he  would  have 
paused  if  he  had  visited  the  poet's  house. 

For  it  is  a  yellow  citadel  stormed  by  sunlight  from  morning  to 
night  —  sunlight  pouring  down  upon  its  southerly  wall  and  dancing 
off  the  terrace  to  ripple  over  the  lawn,  splashing  in  minor  torrents 
through  the  tall  windows  of  Martha  Washington's  room,  and  of  the 
poet's  red-curtained  study  opposite,  slanting  its  mellow  shafts  at 
acute  angles  into  the  rooms  on  the  north  side,  and  breaking  up  at 
last  into  a  carnival  of  color  in  the  garden. 

No  such  crisp  epigram  as  the  Frenchman's  will  dismiss  the 
house.  True,  he  would  have  found  himself  at  home  in  the  midst  of 
gay  colorings  and  an  orderly  clutter  of  interesting  and  precious  garni 
tures,  furniture,  books  and  objets  d'art.  But  as  his  critical  faculties 
were  trained  upon  the  interior,  as  he  began  to  retrace  the  history 
of  this  building,  obviously  so  colonially  American,  and  yet  become 
so  definitely  of  another  period  without  losing  its  colonial  flavor,  he 


121 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

would  have  groped  in  vain  for  a  bright  phrase  to  polish  off  his  im 
pression. 

The  Longfellow  house  is  " typical"  of  nothing,  and  we  may  thank 
heaven  for  that.  It  borrows  here  and  there  from  architectural  con 
vention,  improves  vastly  upon  it  here  and  there,  accepts  easily  the 
change  in  fortunes,  in  family  and  in  comforts  of  its  successive  owners. 
It  has  the  requisite  dignity  of  its  poet  and  its  generaf,  the  well-dressed 
air  of  its  Tory  merchant,  the  scholarly  simplicity  of  its  lexicographer, 
the  open-armed  hospitality  of  its  rich  apothecary-general,  and  the 
grace  of  the  lady  who  is  its  present  occupant.  The  composite  of 
these  qualities  is  a  picture  which  is  almost  as  familiar  and  as  dear  to 
America  as  Mount  Vernon. 

Out  of  that  picture  troops  a  story  more  varied  in  human  inci 
dent  than  that  of  Washington's  own  home.  It  begins  in  1759,  when 
a  Colonel  Vassall  built  a  splendid  new  house  on  Tory  Row,  the  vul 
gar  name  for  the  Via  Sacra  of  Cambridge,  now  called  Brattle  Street. 
Within  a  radius  of  a  quarter-mile  one  might  take  tea  with  the  Lees, 
dine  with  the  last  of  the  King's  foresters,  discuss  politics  with  Richard 
Lechmere,  or  theology  with  the  Reverend  East  Apthorp,  without  can 
vassing  more  than  a  small  group  of  the  sociable  colony  of  royalists 
whose  residences  gave  the  street  its  nickname.  Administrations 
change,  the  Tory  "keynote"  is  perennial,  and  if  your  visit  to  Cam 
bridge  had  been  timed  in  the  early  seventies  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen 
tury,  the  chances  are  that  the  prevailing  topic  of  conversation  in 
Tory  Row  would  have  been  politics,  and  the  keynote  would  have 
been — as  today — "What  are  we  coming  to?" 

At  that  particular  season  they  came  to  an  April  forenoon  of 
'75.  A  line  of  red-coats  marched  out  from  Boston  at  the  double,  past 
the  college,  and  on  into  the  country  toward  Lexington,  where  there  was 


122 


THE      LONGFELLOW      HOUSE 

trouble.  A  few  hours  later  they  returned,  also  at  the  double,  because 
there  had  been  trouble  in  the  country.  On  the  tail  of  the  British  col 
umn  came  the  men  of  Acton  and  Billerica  and  Carlisle  and  Concord, 
and  of  every  village  along  the  line  of  pursuit.  Four  civilians  were 
killed  at  the  corner  of  Dunster  and  Winthrop  Streets — perhaps  be 
cause  they  tried  to  oppose  with  well-aimed  half-bricks  the  further  re 
treat  of  a  much-irritated  British  soldiery.  The  air  of  Cambridge 
became  suddenly  unhealthy  for  royalists,  and  darkness  in  the  fine 
houses  on  Tory  Row  told  its  own  story  of  the  hurried  departure  of 
their  owners. 

The  Vassalls  fled  to  Halifax.  Cambridge  was  becoming  an 
armed  camp,  with  incoming  militia  quartered  where  they  saw  fit 
to  alight.  The  men  of  Marblehead  made  themselves  very  comfort 
able  on  the  Vassall  estate.  The  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  on  June  17th, 
with  heavy  loss  and  no  tangible  advantage  to  either  side,  threw 
the  camp  into  utter  confusion  and  swelled  the  number  of  volun 
teers  to  fourteen  thousand.  They  swarmed  down  in  a  great  semi 
circle  to  sever  the  Boston  peninsula  from  the  mainland,  while  the 
British  retired  into  the  city  to  await  reinforcements.  Congress  met, 
chose  as  commander  of  the  army  a  young  soldier-farmer  from  Virginia 
who  had  shown  great  intelligence  in  discussing  military  plans,  and 
on  July  3d  he  rode  down  Tory  Row  from  Watertown,  made  one  of  the 
shortest  public  speeches  on  record,  and  took  command  of  his  army. 

After  a  fortnight  in  the  residence  on  Harvard  Square,  now  known 
as  Wadsworth  House,  he  ordered  the  men  of  Marblehead  out  of  the 
Vassall  house  to  make  room  for  his  staff  and  headquarters.  For  ten 
months  it  was  his  base  of  operations,  the  longest  period  during  which 
he  occupied  any  headquarters  during  the  Revolution.  He  came  there 

the  authorized  commander  of  an  undisciplined,  inexperienced  mob. 

123 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

He  left  only  after  he  had  transformed  that  mob  into  an  army,  fed  it, 
clothed  it,  armed  it,  guarded  it  from  smallpox,  and  finally,  with  its 
valor  and  enthusiasm  and  skill,  ejected  the  British  from  Boston  for 
a  more  hospitable  battleground  to  the  southward. 

The  southeast  room  was  his  office.  One  day  in  the  early  winter 
of  '75-6  an  out-rider  came  in  with  good  news,  and  presently  Martha 
Washington  "arrived  in  great  ceremony,  with  a  coach  and  four  black 
horses,  with  postilions  and  servants  in  scarlet  livery."  She]  was 
installed  in  the  sunny  room  across  the  hallway,  the  room  from  whose 
walls  look  down  today  the  interesting  faces  of  Sir  William  Pepper- 
rell's  children,  and  the  same  room  in  which  you  may  find  an  exquisite 
onyx  and  metal  goblet  from  the  studio  of  that  delightful  international 
scamp,  Benvenuto  Cellini. 

As  chatelaine  of  headquarters  she  presided  over  a  modest  cele 
bration  of  their  wedding  anniversary,  although,  Miss  Alice  Long 
fellow  says,  "the  General  had  to  be  much  persuaded  by  his  aides." 
And  there  was  a  "Twelfth  Night  party"  which  is  a  tradition  in  the 
Longfellow  family.  On  rare  occasions  since  it  has  been  repeated, 
once  by  a  group  of  youngsters  of  all  ages  who  impersonated  in 
costume  the  guests  of  Washington,  and  some  of  those  latter-day 
guests  were  direct  descendants  of  the  earlier  dignitaries.  On  another 
winter  night  the  Longfellow  children  dressed  in  the  characters  of  the 
successive  occupants  of  the  house,  and  the  sword  of  General  Craigie 
clanked  about  the  boots  of  a  certain  Boston  lawyer  until,  as  he  says 
"I  was  no  longer  Dana;  I  felt  like  a  regular  profiteer!" 

For  the  end  of  the  Revolution  was  the  beginning  of  a  large  period 
of  hospitality  in  the  life  of  General  Andrew  Craigie.  He  had  been 
apothecary-general  to  the  Continental  army,  and  in  the  light  of  the 

recent  war,  it  must  be  evident  that  purveying  to  any  victorious  army 

^ 

124 


THE      LONGFELLOW      HOUSE 

is  profitable.  The  Vassall  House,  during  the  seventeen  years  after 
Washington's  departure,  had  been  occupied  by  two  good  patriots: 
Nathaniel  Tracy,  who  gave  a  hundred  ships  to  the  government  dur 
ing  the  war,  and  Thomas  Russel,  the  same  who  set  Timothy  Dexter 
an  example  for  making  a  fortune.  Then  Andrew  Craigie  (General, 
if  you  like)  bought  the  house,  and  it  bears  his  name  as  commonly 
today  as  that  of  the  poet. 

Hawthorne,  the  quiet,  handsome  young  writer  who  used  to  visit 
the  house  years  later,  should  have  known  General  Craigie.  For  all 
his  garden  parties  at  Commencement  time,  with  their  distinguished 
guests,  like  Talleyrand,  and  Admiral  d'Estaing,  and  Prince  Edward 
(the  father  of  Queen  Victoria),  for  all  the  refinishing  and  painting  he 
did  in  the  house,  for  all  the  splendor  of  the  organ  which  he  installed 
in  the  northeast  room  between  two  fine  Corinthian  columns,  and  the 
rare  girandole  in  the  study,  and  the  Adam  mantels — for  all  his  creature 
magnificence,  he  had  a  scenario  or  two  concealed  about  his  person. 

Hark! 

"I  am  the  ghost  of  Madame  Craigie.  I  loved  an  impetuous 
youth  from  the  south,  then  a  student.  We  parted,  for  my  family 
forbade  me.  But  we  swore  to  write  each  other.  He  did  not  write; 
I  pined;  then,  desperate,  obeyed  my  parents'  mandates,  and  married 
General  Craigie.  And  as  we  sat  at  table  in  his  great  house,  a  letter 
came  to  me,  in  my  maiden  name — the  name,  ah  me!  now  forfeit — 
saying  'I  have  no  word  of  you,  no  word  since  I  went  away.  Why  do 
you  not  write?'  And  then  I  knew  that  they  had  kept  his  letters  from 
me,  and  mine  from  him!  And  from  that  day  I  never  spoke  to  my 
husband  save  on  matters  of  essential  business." 

Hawthorne  could  have  made  something  out  of  that. 

Or  this:  the  poet  was  surprised  one  morning  as  he  came  down- 

125 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

stairs  to  see  lying  on  one  of  the  lower  treads  a  letter.  It  was  a  fervent 
letter,  with  no  clue  to  the  addressee  nor  to  its  source.  Inquiry  dis 
closed  nothing  from  any  member  of  the  household.  The  next  morn 
ing  another  letter — also  fervent.  When  it  happened  again  and  still 
again,  he  set  himself  to  solve  the  mystery.  And  it  was  no  mystery, 
for  in  the  Craigie  dynasty  there  had  been  an  affair,  which  Andrew 
was  only  too  anxious  not  to  pile  on  his  wife's  already  considerable 
grievance.  So  he  walled  the  letters  up  under  the  stairs,  and  thought 
them  safe.  But  as  the  sea  gives  up  her  dead,  the  gradual  settling 
of  the  staircase  and  the  tapping  of  feet  upon  it  slowly  and  inexor 
ably  provoked  a  crack  through  which  revenge  fed  the  letters,  one  by 
one,  confiding  the  story  piecemeal,  to  a  poet. 

Capricious  investments  sent  Craigie  to  his  grave  in  1818  a  poor 
man.  If  Madam  Craigie  was  in  the  slightest  degree  relieved  at  his 
departure,  her  obligation  to  him  was  diluted  by  the  fact  that  she 
must  now  support  herself.  By  "taking  in  boarders"  she  could 
manage  to  live  on  in  the  old  house,  and  make  ends  meet.  For  those 
who  could  pass  her  rather  rigid  inspection  it  offered  accommodation 
far  better  than  the  average.  Naturally  such  folk  as  Edward  Everett 
and  his  bride,  and  President  Jared  Sparks  of  Harvard  and  Josiah 
Worcester,  who  wrote  a  dictionary,  needed  no  references.  With 
strangers  it  was  different.  A  gentle  young  fellow  with  light  hair  and 
deep-set  eyes,  and  a  clean,  aquiline  profile,  appeared  one  afternoon 
in  1837  and  asked  for  lodgings.  She  said  she  had  none  vacant.  In 
the  temporizing  dialogue  which  followed  it  developed  that  his  name  was 
Longfellow  and  that  he  was  the  author  of  a  book  she  had  quite  recently 
been  reading,  and  her  manner  thawed  so  readily  that  he  got  the  room. 

He  was  not  much  trouble,  really — only  a  polite  young  man  from 

Maine  who  had  lost  his  wife  a  year  or  two  before,  and  who  had  just 

126 


THE      LONGFELLOW      HOUSE 

been  made  professor  of  modern  languages  in  the  College.  He  was 
usually  up  in  his  room  writing  at  night,  while  Mrs.  Craigie  read  Vol 
taire  or  Madame  de  Sevigne  down  in  the  library,  or  played  an  old 
song  on  an  old  pianoforte.  Another  paying  guest  was  a  Miss  Sally 
Lowell,  whose  talented  nephew,  James  Russell  Lowell,  was  beginning 
to  be  heard  from;  a  third  was  the  lexicographer  Worcester,  who  was 
so  taken  with  the  house  that  he  later  bought  it.  For  Longfellow's 
part,  they  were  amiable  neighbors,  but  not  so  exacting  as  to  interrupt 
the  absorbing  routine  of  a  man  of  thirty  embarking  upon  a  full  pro 
fessorship. 

For  nearly  twenty  years  he  served  the  College  in  this  capacity. 
The  College  was  thrifty,  and  anxious  to  get  the  most  out  of  his  teach 
ing;  Longfellow's  health  was  not  good,  and  the  duties  of  his  position 
asked  more  of  him  than  he  could  sometimes  give.  He  had  resolved 
as  a  youth  to  become  an  eminent  man  of  letters,  just  as  determinedly 
as  any  man  in  business  ever  set  his  face  toward  the  height  of  power. 
He  kept  a  diary  of  progress,  as  scrupulous  a  record  in  its  own  line 
as  the  balance  sheets  of  an  industry,  and  he  never  allowed  himself  to 
be  diverted  by  praise  or  ill-health  from  the  pursuit  of  his  ambition. 
Steadily  and  smoothly  there  came  from  his  pen  an  output  toward 
which  the  public  looked  with  growing  anticipation.  Now  it  was 
experimental,  now  political,  now  religious.  The  best  of  it  came  from 
the  warmest  corner  of  a  warm  patriotic  heart,  where  he  kept  a  great 
treasure  of  the  legends  of  his  own  country. 

When    Hiawatha,    Evangeline,    and    The    Courtship   of   Miles 
Standish  had  appeared,  his  fame  had  crossed  boundaries  and  oceans. 
Word-mongers  say  they  are  not  his  finest  work,  but  they  went  straight, 
from  his  heart  to  the  heart  of  plain  people  everywhere.     His  enthu 
siasm  for  the  Indian  tradition  that  is  our  only  native  folklore  found 

127 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

utterance  in  Hiawatha;  the  story  of  Evangeline  he  got  from  Haw 
thorne;  the  romance  of  John  Alden  and  Priscilla  Mullins  he  picked 
from  his  own  family  tree.  As  a  poet  he  gave  the  lie  to  the  precious 
though  fashionable  complaint  that  nothing  real  in  art  need  be  expected 
from  America  until  she  had  had  a  century  or  two  of  sandpapering. 
His  enthusiasm  of  race  drew  occasional  outbursts  of  a  greater  quality 
-the  thing  that  made  him  a  great  citizen  as  well  as  a  great  national 
artist — the  immortal  spirit  which  went  into  such  majestic  songs  as 
The  Building  of  the  Ship.  "In  neither  case,"  observes  Higginson, 
"was  this  Americanism  trivial,  wasteful,  or  ignoble  in  its  tone."  Will 
the  professional  hucksters  of  100-per-centism  please  copy? 

Contrary  to  persistent  tradition,  a  poet  is  not  a  sulky  hermit 
plucking  ideas  from  empty  air  and  full  bottles.  Longfellow  had 
about  him  a  laboratory  full  of  elixirs  of  association,  to  which  his  sen 
sitive  spirit  was  a  quick  reagent.  His  second  marriage  gave  him  a 
beloved  wife,  his  wife's  father  gave  Mrs.  Longfellow  the  Craigie  house 
to  live  in  always,  and  Mrs.  Longfellow  gave  her  husband  the  children 
who  were  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  his  affection  for  children  in  general. 
The  familiar  portrait  of  the  children  hangs  in  the  dining-room;  a  pretty 
picture,  painted  by  Reed,  the  same  who  wrote  ' 'Sheridan's  Ride." 

Harvard  activities  supplied  him  with  a  circle  of  friends  which 
spread  like  ripples  in  a  pond  with  every  new  literary  production  he 
cast  forth.  Come  into  his  study  and  meet  the  best  of  them.  A  fine 
white  room  on  the  front  of  the  house,  high  ceiling,  tall  windows,  bright 
turkey-red  curtains  falling  from  borders  scalloped  like  a  flounce  from 
Godey's  Ladies'  Book.  An  orange-tree  flourishing  in  a  tub  at  a 
sunny  window — as  it  was  when  he  stood  at  his  high  desk  and 
wrote  of  Spain.  Most  of  his  writing  was  done  at  a  round  Duncan 

Phyfe   table,   whose    graces   are    hidden    under  a  faded    green    felt 

128 


THE      LONGFELLOW      HOUSE 

cover.  On  its  dusty  self-pattern  of  ivy  leaves  are  the  articles  he 
left  there  as  he  died:  item,  a  miscellany  of  books;  item,  an  ornate 
ink-well  of  Coleridge  which  Longfellow  treasured;  item,  a  historic 
ink-well  which  had  been  the  successive  property  of  Moore  and 
Crabbe,  which  Longfellow  venerated;  and,  item,  a  little  tupenny  glass 
ink-bottle  which  Longfellow  himself  used!  Even  the  quill  pens  are 
there  with  which  he  formed  that  calm,  round  graceful  handwriting. 

You  came  to  see  his  friends.  You  shall.  Here  is  a  spare  young 
man  with  a  sensitive,  kindly  smile  about  the  eyes — from  Concord  he  is, 
and  his  name  is  Emerson.  Over  in  that  extraordinarily  long  armchair 
by  the  hearth  sits  (on  his  shoulder-blades)  a  handsome  chap,  the  only 
man  who  fits  the  chair — six  feet  and  more  of  Charles  Summer.  On  the 
walls  are  the  crayon  portraits  customary  as  gifts  before  the  days  of 
the  camera:  here  is  Felton,  whom  Dickens  called  "the  heartiest  of 
Greek  professors";  here  that  fascinating  Agassiz,  always  shuttling 
between  Cambridge  and  some  tropic  or  other;  here  Hawthorne's  grave 
dark  eyes. 

Picture  him  later  in  life  chatting  before  the  fire  with  Lowell, 
Holmes,  John  Lothrop  Motley,  or  Whittier.  Shift  the  scene  to  a 
Boston  tavern  with  the  same  company,  and  three  or  four  more  of 
their  stature,  engaged  in  starting  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  and  ask 
yourself  where  a  poet  could  seek  more  inspiration.  Gossips  who 
knew  this  group  only  from  outside  called  it  the  ' 'Mutual  Admira 
tion  Society,"  and  you  may  find  in  the  Boston  Athenaeum  a  review 
of  Evangeline  written  by  Felton  on  which  some  scoffing  contemporary 
has  pencilled  "Insured  at  the  Mutual.'1  There  is  good  authority 
for  picturing  Longfellow  and  a  pair  of  younger  cronies  returning  under 
the  moon  from  a  good  dinner  at  Porter's,  singing  in  harmony — "I 

am  a  Rajah!!    Putterum!"     And  in  the  years  when  the  Saturday 

129 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

Club  was  flourishing,  the  poet  was  a  regular  attendant,  and  a  modest, 
dry-spoken  commentator  on  discussions  in  which  the  Olympians 
matched  wits. 

Every  eminent  visitor  to  Boston  paid  him  court  and  even  Oscar 
Wilde  paid  him  a  patronizing  call.  Many  came  who  were  not  eminent, 
and  the  poet  often  invited  aimless  tourists  in  to  see  the  house.  To 
one  such  couple  he  exhibited  the  Coleridge  ink-well,  explaining  help 
fully  that  Coleridge  had  written  The  Ancient  Mariner.  ''Oh,"  said 
the  bridegroom,  and  nodded.  Then,  puzzled,  he  said:  "Say!  who 
done  the  Old  Oaken  Bucket?11  There  were  memorable  evenings  spent 
in  the  Howe  tavern  at  Sudbury  with  Ole  Bull,  the  fiddler,  and  an 
ingenious  group  of  story-tellers  whose  yarns  took  shape  in  "The  Tales 
of  a  Wayside  Inn." 

Longfellow  in  his  later  years  was  the  chief  figure  of  Cambridge. 
Great  men  and  women  came  to  pay  him  tribute  and  to  find  his 
modesty  unimpeached.  When  the  undergraduates  started  a  mutiny 
over  in  the  College  and  riotous  language  was  echoing  from  the  red 
brick  of  old  "Mass."  hall,  it  was  quieted  when  one  youth  cried:  "Let's 
hear  what  Mr.  Longfellow  has  to  say  about  it — he's  fair,  at  any  rate." 
And  when  the  spreading  chestnut  tree  over  Dexter  Pratt's  smithy 
fell,  the  children  of  Cambridge  gave  their  pennies  to  fashion  him  an 
armchair  of  its  wood,  and  used  to  traipse  fearlessly  into  the  Long 
fellow  house  from  time  to  time  to  call  on  the  poet  and  see  that  the 
chair  gave  him  good  service.  Without  question  it  is  one  of  the  home 
liest  chairs  in  the  world — and  one  of  the  finest. 

One  cannot  leave  the  house  without  a  glance  at  his  other  friends, 
his  closer  intimates,  nor  enter  the  house  without  remarking  them. 
Books,  books,  books — heavy  Italian  walnut  cases  of  them,  white 

shelves  of  them,  heaps  of  them,  in  the  study,  the  halls,  the  dining- 

130 


THE      LONGFELLOW      HOUSE 

room,  the  drawing  room,  a  vault  full  of  the  rarest  of  them  in  the  east 
entry.  I  have  not  visited  the  pantry,  but  I  will  make  a  small  wager 
that  there  are  books  on  the  cake-box.  It  is  a  judicious  collection  by 
a  man  who  was  a  hungry  reader  and  a  lover  of  beautiful  volumes. 
There  are  ranks  of  Italian  folios,  Tasso  and  Ariosto  in  white  vellum 
— and  of  apparently  everything  else  in  equally  rich  costume,  for  the 
years  of  the  poet's  great  public  appreciation  built  for  him  a  formid 
able  library  of  handsomely  bound  presentation  copies  and  he  was  no 
mean  purchaser  himself. 

They  are  where  the  poet  left  them,  and  so  they  will  stay.  When 
the  actual  tenancy  of  the  house  by  the  Longfellow  heirs  comes  to  a 
period,  it  will  be  held  securely  in  trust  just  as  it  is,  just  as  he  left  it  one 
March  day  in  1882.  Those  generous  and  tactful  heirs  have  already 
given  the  city  of  Cambridge  the  park  which  affords  the  house  a  clear 
vista  to  the  Charles,  and  have  given  Longfellow  land  across  the  Charles 
to  make  up  most  of  Soldiers  Field,  the  great  playground  of  Harvard. 
Now  they  have  wisely  provided  that  the  house  shall  not  become  a 
museum,  but  that  it  shall  remain  the  home  of  whose  atmosphere 
and  influence  they  cherish  so  acute  an  appreciation. 

Longfellow's  bust  stands  in  Westminster  Abbey,  the  first 
American  so  to  be  honored.  It  is  made  of  marble,  and  is  a  good  like 
ness.  Longfellow's  soul  lives  in  Cambridge,  in  his  home.  The  house 
is  a  better  likeness  than  the  bust,  and  of  warmer  stuff.  His  chil 
dren's  trust  will  perpetuate  their  generosity  for  our  children's  children. 


A  dignified  old  clock  stands  on  the  stairs,  and  ticks: 

"Forever — never 
Never— forever." 


CLIVEDEN 


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CLIVEDEN 

A  DAUGHTER  of  the  Quincy  house  saw  the  beginning  of  the 
Revolution.  Mount  Vernon  was  the  home  of  its  chief  figure. 
From  the  Jumel  Mansion  he  retreated  to  Westchester  when  the  Conti 
nental  army  suffered  its  first  major  reverse.  In  the  Kendall  house 
at  Dobbs  Ferry  he  conceived  the  campaign  which  was  to  end  the  war, 
and  there  finally  he  saw  the  British  evacuate  the  United  States.  Five 
houses  in  America  punctuate  the  Revolutionary  career  of  Washing 
ton,  and  the  fifth  is  the  house  where  the  cause  of  freedom  entered  the 
dark  hours,  the  period  of  terrible  ordeal. 

Cliveden  was  built  in  1761  on  "the  worst  road  in  America,"  the 
main  street  of  Germantown.  The  village,  whose  houses  dotted  some 
three  miles  of  the  street,  was  already  becoming  a  fashionable  summer 
retreat  for  prominent  Philadelphians,  and  William  Chew,  the  attorney 
general  of  the  province,  made  Cliveden  large  enough  for  a  family  that 
totalled  fourteen  children,  with  the  appropriate  retinue  of  servants 
and  household  pets.  The  house  is  three  stories  high,  as  severely 
rectangular  as  a  mill,  with  a  plain  extension  built  to  the  rear,  and  a 
further  detached  addition  connected  only  by  an  underground  pas 
sage.  It  might  easily  have  been  commonplace,  but  the  dapple-gray 
native  stone  of  which  it  is  built  is  interesting,  the  doorway,  to  which 
you  ascend  by  a  flight  of  six  stone  steps,  is  dignified  and  inviting,  and 
dormer  windows,  fat  chimneys,  and  stone  urns  strike  notes  of  real 
character  on  an  otherwise  plain  roof.  It  makes  no  great  bid  for 

135 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

beauty,  but  its  aspect  of  substance  is  as  honest  as  a  Philadelphia 
lawyer — and  that  is  what  William  Chew  was. 

Although  he  became  chief  justice  of  Pennsylvania  under  the 
crown,  he  was  no  more  of  a  loyalist  than  his  position  required.  As 
a  model  of  astute  straddling,  where  can  you  cite  a  statement  which 
quite  compares  with  his  decision,  rendered  in  answer  to  the  question: 
What  is  to  become  of  those  who  meet  the  mandates  of  the  crown  with 
armed  resistance? 

"I  have  stated,"  he  answered,  "that  an  opposition  by  force  of 
arms  to  the  lawful  authority  of  the  King  or  his  Ministry  is  high  trea 
son,  but  in  the  moment  when  the  King  or  his  Ministers  shall  exceed 
the  authority  vested  in  them  by  the  Constitution  submission  to  their 
mandate  becomes  treason."  The  same  tolerance  he  showed  toward 
the  uprising  of  the  colonies  he  showed  to  their  leaders  in  Philadelphia, 
and  you  may  take  it  from  John  Adams*  diary  that  he  was  a  rare  and 
upright  judge  of  food  as  well  as  of  treason. 

"Thursday.  Dined  with  Mr.  Chew,  Chief  Justice  of  the  Province, 
with  all  the  gentlemen  from  Virginia  .  .  .  and  many  others. 
About  four  o'clock  we  were  called  down  to  dinner.  The  furniture 
was  all  rich.  Turtle  and  every  other  thing,  flummery,  jellies,  sweet 
meats,  of  20  sorts,  trifles,  whipped  sillabubs,  floating  islands,  fools, 
etc.,  and  then  a  dessert  of  fruits,  raisens,  almonds,  pears,  peaches, 
wines  most  excellent  &  admirable.  I  drank  Madeira  at  a  great  rate 
&  found  no  inconvenience  in  it." 

However  much  the  members  of  the  Continental  Congress  enjoyed 
his  hospitality  in  1775,  they  could  no  longer  endure  his  presence  as 
chief  justice  in  Philadelphia  in  1777,  and  in  August  of  that  year  he 
and  Governor  John  Penn  were  arrested  and  escorted  to  Burlington, 

New  Jersey.     Within  a  month  Washington  had  met  the  British  in 

136 


CLIVEDEN 


force  at  the  Brandywine  in  a  doubtful  effort  to  check  their  march  on 
Philadelphia,  and  had  been  defeated.  For  a  fortnight  he  played  hide- 
and-seek  with  Howe  on  the  banks  of  the  Schuylkill,  and  if  the  coun 
tryside  had  been  as  communicative  to  him  as  it  was  to  the  enemy, 
the  enemy  would  not  have  marched,  as  he  presently  did,  unmolested 
into  Philadelphia.  Howe  placed  his  major  force  at  Germantown, 
and  Washington  came  in  as  near  as  he  dared  and  sat  down  to  watch 
and  wait.  Strategically,  the  Revolution  was  a  distinctly  suburban 
war.  With  Philadelphia,  the  national  capital,  in  the  hands  of  the 
British,  and  winter  coming  on,  American  morale  was  quoted  at  .001, 
with  no  sales. 

On  the  night  of  October  2-3,  the  American  forces  marched  quietly 
down  the  main  road  toward  Germantown,  with  flanks  thrown  out, 
on  the  right  to  the  Wissahickon  ravine,  on  the  left  to  the  old  York 
pike.  Dawn  brought  Sullivan  of  Maine  into  contact  with  the  enemy. 
The  enemy  retreated,  gaining  speed  as  he  scampered  down  Mount 
Airy  into  Germantown,  with  Sullivan,  Conway  and  Reed  at  his  heels. 
Colonel  Musgrave,  of  the  Fortieth  Regiment  of  the  British,  saw  the 
retreat  coming,  and  with  one  hundred  and  twenty  men  swarmed  into 
Cliveden,  closed  the  shutters  on  the  lower  floor,  barred  the  doors, 
and  prepared  to  stand.  Washington  himself  was  in  the  pursuit, 
and  he  ordered  Maxwell  and  four  cannon  to  the  ground  across  the 
street  from  Cliveden,  where  Upsala  now  stands.  A  thick  fog  had 
gathered,  making  it  nearly  impossible  to  determine  where  the  enemy 
was,  or  in  what  strength.  The  utmost  confusion  prevailed.  One 
of  Maxwell's  six-pounders  spoke,  and  a  ball  passed  in  the  front  window 
of  the  Chew  house,  through  four  partitions  and  heaven  knows  how 
many  British,  and  out  a  rear  window.  The  battery  hammered  at  the 
steps,  the  windows  and  the  door,  while  snipers  fired  at  the  flash  of 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

rifles  from  the  upper  stories.  Infantry  charged  across  the  lawn  and 
were  beaten  back,  artillery  punctured,  but  did  not  dislodge.  Reed  was 
all  for  chasing  the  rest  of  the  retreating  British  toward  the  city,  but 
Knox  said  it  was  against  the  rules  to  leave  an  enemy  fort  in  the  rear. 
"What!"  Reed  exclaimed,  "call  this  a  fort  and  lose  the  happy  moment?" 

It  was  in  effect  a  fort,  but  it  was  as  truly  the  happy  moment  to 
leave  the  fort  to  be  cleaned  out  later  and  press  the  British  retreat. 
For  the  American  wings  had  not  driven  the  British  back  (the  American 
left  wing  failed  because  General  Stephen  was  drunk),  and  the  British, 
unopposed,  marched  obliquely  toward  the  center  of  the  fighting  at 
Cliveden.  Thus  the  battle  became,  instead  of  the  conflict  of  bow- 
shaped  forces,  the  meeting  of  two  great  arrowheads,  and  the  point 
where  the  arrows  met  and  the  sparks  were  flying  thickest  was  the 
lawn  of  the  Chew  house.  Smith  of  Virginia,  a  colonel,  set  out  for  the 
house  with  a  flag  of  truce  to  demand  Musgrave's  surrender,  and  was 
shot  from  a  window.  Major  White,  one  of  Sullivan's  aides,  tried  to 
set  fire  to  the  house,  and  a  shot  from  a  cellar  window  killed  him. 
Musgrave  hung  on.  Every  minute  that  passed  brought  British 
troops  nearer,  and  increased  the  odds  against  the  Americans. 

Our  army  left  five  hundred  dead  and  wounded  in  Germantown 
and  then  retreated  to  Whitemarsh.  The  King's  forces,  reduced  by 
five  hundred  dead  and  wounded,  remained  in  the  bloody  fog  of  the 
village.  The  townsfolk  began  to  come  out  of  their  cellars  and  examine 
the  damage.  A  field  hospital  was  set  up  at  Wyck,  a  fine  old  house 
down  Germantown  Road.  At  Johnson  House  you  can  see  today 
the  hole  in  a  window-frame  through  which  a  frantic  pet  squirrel,  for 
gotten  in  the  flight  to  the  cellar,  gnawed  his  way  to  freedom.  Stray 
bullets  pierced  every  house  within  a  quarter-mile,  and  of  all  the  houses 
within  that  radius,  Cliveden,  its  center,  took  the  worst  punishment. 

*t 

138 


CLIVEDEN 


Five  carpenters  worked  all  that  fall  and  winter  repairing  the 
damage.  Holes  gaped  through  the  inner  walls,  hardly  a  pane  of 
glass  was  intact,  statues  were  chipped,  mirrors  splintered,  furniture 
reduced  to  expensive  kindling.  What  was  not  stained  with  blood 
was  streaked  with  smoke,  and  the  second  floor  ceilings  were  sprayed 
with  bullets  by  Continentals  who  dashed  into  the  shelter  of  the  build 
ing  and  fired  through  the  upper  windows. 

Across  the  span  of  the  years  we  can  still  hear  the  echo  of  an  out 
raged  protest — the  hymn  of  hate  of  the  daughters  of  William  Chew, 
sung  with  all  the  cordial  detestation  that  could  be  uttered  by  a  group 
of  sisters  who  came  out  to  Germantown  under  British  escort  and 
found  their  lovely  home  in  ruins  at  the  hands  of  the  army  that  had 
already  made  their  father  a  prisoner.  None  can  blame  them  for  the 
gayety  with  which  they  entered  into  the  social  life  of  that  winter  in 
the  occupied  city,  with  never  a  thought  for  Washington's  men  shiver 
ing  in  the  snow  at  Valley  Forge.  Knyphausen,  Cornwallis,  and  the 
two  Howes  picked  out  comfortable  quarters  in  the  deserted  houses 
of  the  patriots  who  had  fled,  and  Major  Andre  settled  down  with  a 
"rapacious  crew"  in  the  home  of  Benjamin  Franklin.  When  Frank 
lin's  daughter  returned  after  the  British  evacuation  the  next  June  she 
reported  to  him  in  Paris:  "They  stole  and  carried  off  with  them  some 
of  your  musical  instruments,  viz.,  a  Welsh  harp,  ball  harp,  the  set 
of  tuned  bells  which  were  in  a  box,  viol-de-gamba,  all  the  spare 
harmonica  glasses  and  one  or  two  spare  cases."  Tuneful  was  the  life 
of  the  army  of  occupation. 

Andre  was  paying  diligent  court  to  Peggy  Chew.  He  was  her 
champion  in  the  fete  of  Mischianza,  and  her  gallant  protector  when 
a  marauding  force  of  ragged  Continentals  marched  down  from  Valley 
Forge  and  broke  up  the  party.  He  wore  her  ribbon,  with  the  legend 

139 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL     HOUSES 

"No  Rival,"  presented  her  with  an  aquarelle  of  himself  in  costume, 
wrote  an  account  of  the  affair  in  verse,  and  filled  in  his  spare  hours  by 
inditing  to  her  rhapsodies  inspired  in  the  orchard  at  Cliveden,  in 
apple-blossom  time.  Then  came  the  parting;  within  a  few  short 
years 

"The  youth  who  bids  with  stifled  pain 
His  sad  farewell  tonight" 

was  dead  with  a  rope  around  his  neck,  and  although  Peggy  married 
a  soldier  of  the  Republic,  she  remembered  the  enemy  gallant.  She 
was  never  so  impishly  amused  as  when  she  could  say  a  kind  word 
for  Andr£,  for  it  guaranteed  an  explosive  protest  from  her  husband. 
"Major  Andre,"  said  Peggy,  demurely,  with  a  certain  dangerous 
sadness  in  her  eyes,  uwas  a  most  witty  and  cultivated  gentleman," 
and  Colonel  Howard,  seizing  a  visitor's  arm,  exclaimed  "He  was  a 
damned  spy,  sir!  Nothing  but  a  damned  spy!" 

The  house  had  been  restored  only  two  years  when  William  Chew 
sold  it  to  Blair  McClenahan,  but  in  1787  he  bought  it  back.  In 
August  of  1787  Washington,  then  president  of  the  Constitutional 
Convention,  rode  out  to  see  the  encampment  at  Whitemarsh  to  which 
he  had  retreated  ten  years  before,  and  dined  with  McClenahan  in 
the  Chew  house.  Despite  his  Royalist  relations,  the  close  of  the 
Revolution  restored  Benjamin  Chew  to  good  standing  in  his  com 
munity  and  the  judicial  profession,  and  he  served  as  justice  of  the 
High  Court  of  Errours  and  Appeals  until  its  abolishment  in  1808. 
During  the  period  when  the  Federal  Congress  sat  in  Philadelphia  it 
was  no  infrequent  thing  to  see  the  Father  of  His  Country  in  company 
with  the  father  of  Peggy  and  of  Harriet,  who  was  soon  to  marry  a 
Carroll  of  Dough oregan. 

It  was  at  Germantown  that  Stephen's  drunkenness  left  his  divi- 

140 


CLIVEDEN 


sion  without  a  commander,  and  opened  a  vacancy  for  Lafayette's 
assumption  of  an  active  command  as  major-general.  Naturally, 
therefore,  when  Lafayette  returned  to  America  in  1825,  he  could  not 
ignore  German  town.  He  was  received  with  a  military  escort  and 
drawn  "in  an  open  barouche"  to  Cliveden.  Let  Miss  Ann  Johnson, 
of  Upsala,  across  the  way,  carry  on  the  story  as  she  did  in  a  letter  to 
her  mother: 

"Last  4th.  day  morn  I  had  the  honour  of  breakfasting  with 
Lafayette  at  Mr.  Chew's.  I  wish  you  had  been  here — the  house  both 
up  and  down  stairs  was  crowded  with  men,  women  and  soldiers— 
and  around  the  house.  Mrs.  and  two  of  the  Miss  Morris's  and  my 
self  were  the  only  invited  ladies  that  sat  down  to  Breakfast — about 
16  sat  down  at  first,  and  when  they  had  finished  others  took  their 
place,  and  so  on  till  I  believe  nearly  all  the  soldiers  had  breakfast — 
those  that  did  not  come  in  had  something  in  the  kitchen.  I  heard 
that  they  eat  everything  they  had  till  at  last  the  cook  had  to  lock  the 
doors. 

"I  was  introduced  to  LaFayette  twice  and  shook  hands  with  him 
three  times.  Ann  Chew  regretted  M.  was  not  there  to  enjoy  the  scene 
— it  was  quite  delightful  to  see  anything  so  animated  in  G — pp. 
There  was  so  much  noise  that  I  could  not  hear  a  word  the  General 
said;  every  person  seemed  so  anxious  to  see  him  eat  that  a  centinal 
had  to  keep  guard  at  the  door  with  a  drawn  sword — it  was  very  fine 
indeed.  When  he  departed  the  shouts  of  the  multitude  and  the 
roaring  of  the  cannon  was  almost  deafening.  A.  L.  Logan  said  I  could 
give  you  a  very  fine  description  of  it — but  I  told  him  I  would  have  to 
leave  it  to  your  imagination,  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  describe 
everything." 

Mrs.  Samuel  Chew  is  the  present  owner  of  the  estate,  and  an 

141 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

appreciative  custodian  of  its  legend.  Hers  are  the  Washington  letters; 
the  portraits  of  illustrious  Chews  who  have  been  eminent  in  the  law, 
medicine,  and  public  affairs  since  John  Chew  sailed  into  Jamestown 
in  the  Charitie  in  1621;  the  shot-holes,  the  stains  of  the  powder-kegs 
on  the  floor;  the  immaculately  carved  columns  and  stair  rail  of  the 
hallway,  and  the  hundred  other  fragments  of  the  Cliveden  story. 
Cliveden  is  hers — its  story  is  the  nation's. 


142 


THE  WENTWORTH  MANSION 


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THE  WENTWORTH  MANSION 

"These  tales  you  tell  are  one  and  all 

Of  the  Old  World,"  the  Poet  said, 
"Flowers  gathered  from  a  crumbling  wall, 

Dead  leaves  that  rustle  as  they  fall ; 

Let  me  present  you  in  their  stead 

Something  of  our  New  England  earth,     .     .     ." 

— Lady  Wentworth. 

IT  was  almost  as  original  in  Colonial  New  Hampshire  to  be  a 
Wentworth  as  it  is  today  to  be  a  Biddle  in  Philadelphia.  The 
descendants  of  Samuel  Wentworth,  the  first  of  his  name  in  the  prov 
ince,  were  conspicuously  numerous  in  the  small  population  of  their 
community.  As  individuals  they  were  energetic,  persevering,  and 
not  without  a  certain  amount  of  dignity.  To  say  that  they  were 
politicians  is  to  say  that  they  were  business  men.  Individually  they 
were  better  than  average  citizens,  collectively  they  contributed  enough 
to  the  progress  and  the  story  of  New  Hampshire  to  invite  a  glimpse 
into  the  house  which  is  today  the  chief  memorial  to  the  family. 

Except  for  its  size  you  might  pass  it  by  in  a  countryside  full  of 
rambling  buildings  silvered  by  the  weather.  It  has  neither  the  warm, 
open-armed  welcome  of  Doughoregan  Manor,  nor  the  smug  com 
fort  of  Cliveden,  nor  the  exalted  location  of  Monticello,  nor  the  deco 
rative  dignity  of  its  rival,  the  Pepperrell  House  across  the  harbor. 
A  plain  man  built  it  somewhere  back  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
built  it  close  by  the  bright  water  of  Little  Harbor  because  there  were 
codfish  there  as  sacred  to  New  Hampshire  revenue  as  any  goldfish 

145 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

that  ever  inspired  faith  in  Massachusetts.  Built  it  out  of  big  timber 
to  cut  the  northeasters  whipping  in  over  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  built 
a  sharp  roof  to  shed  snow.  Built  it  to  live  in.  Another  generation, 
with  perhaps  a  larger  family,  wanted  more  room,  and  built  on.  When 
Mark  Hunking  owned  it  he  did  the  same.  In  the  south  our  col 
onies*  increased  demands  upon  the  facilities  of  a  growing  estate  were 
met  by  outbuildings  set  well  apart  from  the  great  house,  but  in 
this  sharp  climate  outbuildings  raised  the  unpleasant  prospect  of 
wading  to  and  fro  through  shoulder-high  drifts,  and  involved  separate 
heating-plants  and  no  end  of  inconvenience.  So  gradually  the  house 
sprouted  a  plain  ell  here  and  a  humble  jog  there,  a  shed  around  the 
corner,  and  enough  additions  to  effect  a  total  of  nearly  fifty  rooms. 
I  like  to  think  of  the  house  as  a  family  group  of  all  the  Wentworths, 
of  each  little  addition  to  the  original  nucleus  as  one  of  the  useful  but 
obscure  members  posed  kneeling  or  sitting  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
family  as  it  pyramids  up  to  the  great  bulk  of  the  council-room  Benning 
Wentworth  built,  the  council-room  being  in  my  mind's  eye  none  other 
than  the  formidable,  homely,  well-fed  and  hard-drinking  Benning 
himself. 

To  paint  for  yourself  the  picture  of  the  prime  of  the  house  you 
must  recall  certain  facts  about  the  Portsmouth  of  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  Twenty  miles  inland  Indians  scalped  white 
men  and  women,  and  white  men  scalped  Indians.  As  many  miles 
to  the  eastward,  and  more,  the  men  of  Portsmouth  sailed  in  ships 
for  fish  and  returned  with  a  catch  to  pay  the  storekeeper's  bill  for 
groceries  and  clothing — a  bill  which  always  seemed  just  out  of  reach, 
and  which  kept  these  men  sailing  until  they  died,  while  the  merchants 
prospered.  From  the  outer  world  came  small-pox.  Over  on  Great 

Island,  at  the  Walton  place,  there  were  genuine  witches;  if  you  don't 

146 


THE      WENTWORTH      MANSION 

believe  this  you  may  read  it  in  a  pamphlet  published  in  London  in 
1698,  whose  title  says  it  is 

"an  Exact  and  True  Account  of  the  various  actions  of  infernal  Spirits,  or  (Devils 
Incarnate)  Witches,  or  both;  and  the  great  Disturbance  and  Amazement  they 
gave  to  George  Walton's  Family  at  a  place  called  Great  Island  in  the  Province  of 
New  Hampshire  in  New  England,  chiefly  in  throwing  about  (by  an  Invisible 
hand)  Stones,  Bricks,  and  Brick-bats  of  all  sizes,  with  several  other  things,  as 
Hammers,  Mauls,  Iron-Crows,  Spits,  and  other  domestick  utensils,  as  came  into 
their  Hellish  Minds,  and  this  for  the  space  of  a  Quarter  of  a  Year." 

The  Province,  though  a  royal  property  as  distinguished  from  a 
chartered  colonial  settlement,  was  not  encouraging  to  the  farmer, 
not  ready  for  the  miller.  Its  governorship  was  for  the  king's  favorite 
candidate,  and  in  size  and  importance  it  was  a  homely  stepsister  of 
the  well-to-do  colony  of  Massachusetts  to  the  southward. 

John  Wentworth  bought  the  lieutenant-governorship  and  made 
it  profitable  until  he  died.  From  his  widow,  Mark  Hunking's  daugh 
ter,  Benning  Wentworth  inherited  the  Mansion  at  Little  Harbor. 
As  a  young  graduate  of  Harvard  who  had  brought  home  a  Boston 
bride,  and  as  the  owner  of  a  prosperous  business  and  a  fine  house, 
he  was  popular  enough,  and  his  path  was  paved  into  politics.  The 
Assembly  applauded  his  protests  against  the  Governor  of  Massa 
chusetts  who  also  governed  New  Hampshire.  As  a  member  of  the 
council  his  youthful  oratory  soon  moderated  to  the  whisper  of  the 
boss  who  is  learning  how  to  do  things  smoothly,  for  there  was 
much  to  be  gained  if  London  could  be  persuaded  to  appoint  a 
distinct  governor  for  New  Hampshire  who  would  not  be  responsi 
ble  to  Massachusetts.  In  1744  the  opportunity  came  to  prove 
his  point. 

Benning  Wentworth  sold  a  cargo  of  lumber  to  an  agent  of  the 

147 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

King  of  Spain.  When  it  reached  Cadiz  the  agent  had  resigned, 
and  his  successor  refused  the  cargo.  On  the  return  voyage  the  ship 
foundered,  and  Wentworth  and  a  handful  of  sailors  counted  them 
selves  lucky  to  be  rescued.  He  went  at  once  to  London  to  beg  the 
government  to  enforce  his  claim  on  Spain.  With  similar  complaints 
from  other  British  merchants  a  bill  was  presented  at  Madrid  which 
Spain  honored  but  did  not  pay,  and  under  economic  pressure  England 
declared  war  upon  her.  At  home,  meanwhile,  Governor  Belcher  had 
fallen  into  every  trap  his  enemies  set  for  him,  and  was  removed,  but 
not  before  the  King  had  been  prevailed  upon  to  separate  Massa 
chusetts  and  New  Hampshire  once  and  for  all,  re-survey  their 
boundaries,  and  set  up  a  new  governor  not  only  in  Boston  but  in 
Portsmouth. 

Theoretically,  John  Thomlinson,  the  agent  of  New  Hampshire 
in  London,  brought  this  about,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  Thom- 
linson's  good  aim  and  Benning  Wentworth's  timely  cartridges  which 
shot  Governor  Belcher's  support  from  under  him.  What  more 
natural,  therefore,  than  that  Benning  Wentworth  return  to  Ports 
mouth  as  governor  of  New  Hampshire.  He  was  received  with  cheers, 
and  made  a  hearty  address  to  his  Assembly,  suggesting  that  they 
make  him  a  guaranteed  annual  grant  of  salary.  The  Assembly 
replied  with  fulsome  cordiality  and  said  they  would  grant  him  what 
ever  they  found  themselves  able  to  pay.  It  proved  to  be  /500  a  year, 
and  to  this  Thomlinson  presently  managed  to  add  the  job  of  Surveyor 
of  the  Woods,  which  he  bought  from  the  previous  surveyor  for  two 
thousand  pounds  and  turned  over  to  Wentworth  for  a  consideration 
not  mentioned.  In  order  to  accept  the  post  the  Governor  had  to 
surrender  his  claims  for  $56,000  against  the  Court  of  Spain,  and  the 

prospects  were  so  bright  in  his  new  position  that  he  was  glad  enough 

148 


THE      WENTWORTH      MANSION 

to  do  it  in  favor  of  additional  income  of  ,£800,  and  to  settle  down  to 
a  smooth  program  of  political  patronage. 

It  happened  that  he  was  not  to  be  allowed  to  forget  the  Court 
of  Spain,  nor  to  get  rich  without  making  enemies.  England's  war 
with  Spain  dragged  France  in,  and  Governor  Shirley  of  Massachusetts, 
full  of  enthusiasm  for  his  new  charge,  looked  on  a  map  for  the  nearest 
French  stronghold,  found  it  to  be  Louisburg,  on  Cape  Breton  Island, 
and  shouted  for  money,  arms,  and  men  for  an  expedition.  Benning 
Wentworth,  who  liked  Shirley  and  often  asked  his  advice,  heard  the 
cry,  and  offered  New  Hampshire  help.  Shirley  took  the  help,  and 
appointed  a  rival  merchant  in  Portsmouth,  William  Pepperrell,  as 
general  in  command. 

Here  was  a  delicate  situation.  Shirley,  having  securely  appointed 
Pepperrell,  wrote:  "It  would  have  been  an  infinite  satisfaction  to  me, 
and  done  great  honor  to  the  expedition  if  your  limbs  would  have 
permitted  you  to  take  the  command."  Wentworth  was  so  charmed 
with  the  idea  that  he  forgot  his  gout  and  volunteered!  To  this  Shirley 
replied,  with  more  truth  than  tact,  that  "any  alteration  of  the  present 
command  would  be  attended  with  great  risque,  both  with  respect  to 
the  Assembly  and  the  soldiers  being  entirely  disgusted."  "You  was 
made  General,"  wrote  a  friend  to  Pepperrell,  "being  a  popular  man, 
most  likely  to  raise  soldiers  soonest.  The  expedition  was  calculated 
to  ESTABLISH  Shirley  and  make  his  creature  Wentworth  Governor 
of  Cape  Breton,  which  is  to  be  a  place  of  refuge  for  him  from  his  cred 
itors.  Beware  of  snakes  in  the  grass  and  mind  their  hissing."  About 
four  thousand  men  rallied,  a  fleet  of  a  hundred  vessels  assembled, 
and  the  voyage  began,  planned  by  a  Governor,  and  commanded  by 
a  merchant,  to  storm  a  citadel  called  the  "Gibraltar  of  America." 

Contemporaries  called  it  a  "Cambridge  commencement,"  and 

149 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

t 
without  a  wild  sort  of  undergraduate  enthusiasm  it  must  have  failed. 

An  enthusiastic  preacher  gave  Governor  Shirley  a  plan  for  investing 
the  fortress  which  he  had  worked  out  himself.  Another  amateur  gave 
him  a  model  of  a  flying  bridge  to  be  used  in  scaling  the  walls — it  only 
needed  twelve  hundred  feet  of  rope  to  operate,  and  a  thousand  men 
might  pass  over  it  in  four  minutes.  Shirley  took  his  own  counsel, 
drew  his  own  beautifully-timed  plans,  and  designed  his  own  scaling 
ladders  and  pikes.  The  men  were  growing  restless  when  George 
Whitefield,  the  eminent  Newburyport  counterpart  of  our  own  Billy 
Sunday,  devised  a  motto  "nihil  desperandum  Christo  duce,"  and  the 
expedition  sailed  like  fanatic  crusaders  out  of  Boston  Harbor,  un 
scathed  by  a  severe  epidemic  of  small-pox  in  the  port. 

Every  plan  Shirley  made  went  wrong.  The  fortress,  instead  of 
being  surprised  by  the  fleet,  woke  up  the  morning  of  April  29  to 
see  it  lying  off  the  harbor.  Yet  on  June  17  the  well-scared  com 
mander  of  the  citadel  hauled  down  the  French  flag.  The  Yankees 
took  the  city,  hauled  the  Tricolor  up  again,  and  lured  several  valuable 
prizes  into  port  in  this  way.  Pepperrell  was  made  a  Baronet,  Com 
modore  Warren  an  Admiral.  England  forced  France  to  make  peace, 
and  gave  Louisburg  back.  Do  you,  perhaps,  see  now  why  they 
called  it  a  Cambridge  commencement? 

Governor  Wentworth,  though  not  a  participant,  shared  vicari 
ously  in  the  glory  of  the  expedition,  and  kept  busy  at  home  directing 
the  fighting  in  the  west  against  French  Indians  who  raided  the  fron 
tier  stockades  from  the  New  York  lakes.  Gradually  and  thoroughly 
he  installed  his  relatives  in  lucrative  positions  of  the  provincial  gov 
ernment.  An  occasional  quarrel  with  his  Assembly  brought  forth  a 
protest  to  the  King  to  remove  him  and  place  Pepperrell  in  his  stead. 
Unruffled,  he  ;would  call  his  council  to  the  mansion  at  Little  Harbor, 

150 


THE      WENTWORTH      MANSION 

set  out  an  enormous  punch-bowl  on  the' council-room  sideboard,  and 
conduct  the  affairs  of  state  as  swiftly  as  a  governor  should  who  wants 
to  move  on  to  the  card-rooms  for  a  friendly  game. 

From  his  office  above  he  could  keep  a  weather  eye  on  the  ships 
out  for  the  West  Indies  with  lumber  and  livestock  and  fish  and  oil, 
and  could  tick  off  those  inward-bound  with  molasses  and  coffee  and 
rum.  Toward  town  he  could  glimpse  the  stocks  where  more  ships 
were  building  to  tie  his  wilderness  province,  with  its  twenty  miles  of 
seacoast,  to  the  outside  world.  If  the  Assembly  lost  its  manners 
and  had  to  be  attended  to,  he  stepped  to  the  landing  at  the  council- 
room  door,  and  was  royally  wafted  away  to  town  in  his  official  barge. 
His  aims  were  not  all  selfish  by  any  means.  He  gave  a  grant  of  land 
in  the  Connecticut  valley  on  which  to  build  Dartmouth  College,  he 
drew  from  the  Assembly  a  grant  of  300  pounds  to  restore  a  part  of 
the  burned  library  of  Harvard.  If  his  wife  and  his  son  had  been 
spared  to  him,  his  life  would  have  been  very  happy.  But  they  were 
not  spared,  and  thus  innocently  they  contribute  to  the  story  of  the 
house  its  most  entertaining  episode. 

The  kindly  poet  in  the  Craigie  House  told  it  in  the  Tales  of  a 
Wayside  Inn.  Shorn  of  its  poetic  embellishments,  it  is  this:  The 
Governor  grew  lonely  in  the  great  house.  He  had  lost  his  wife,  his 
boy,  his  figure.  A  maid  of  Portsmouth  caught  his  eye,  but  she  loved 
a  sailor,  and  would  have  none  of  the  Governor  and  his  city  ways. 
Accordingly,  the  sailor  was  caught  by  a  press-gang  and  shipped  to 
sea.  Benning  Wentworth  grew  lonelier,  until  one  day  he  summoned 
to  his  house  a  number  of  guests,  among  them  the  Reverend  Arthur 
Brown.  After  a  good  dinner  he  fixed  a  firm  eye  upon  the  dominie  j 
and  said:  "You  are  here,  sir,  to  marry  me/'  The  company  was 
astounded,  and  asked  for  the  bride,  whereupon  the  Governor  turned 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

and  introduced  as  his  blushing  betrothed  a  maid-of-all-work  in  the 
house,  Martha  Hilton.  And  so,  as  so  often  happens,  they  were 
married. 

"The  rector  read  the  service  loud  and  clear: 
'Dearly  beloved,  we  are  gathered  here,' 

And  so  on  to  the  end.     At  his  command 

On  the  fourth  finger  of  her  fair  left  hand 

The  Governor  placed  the  ring;  and  that  was  all: 

Martha  was  Lady  Wentworth  of  the  Hall!" 

The  son  of  the  present  owner  of  the  house,  Mr.  J.  Templeman 
Coolidge,  tells  me  that  marrying  Martha  did  not  necessarily  indicate 
a  loss  of  caste  on  the  Governor's  part,  for  it  was  customary  in  those 
days  for  girls  of  good  families  to  work  in  the  households  of  other  good 
families.  Further,  there  are  none  of  the  poet's  "stacks  of  chimneys 
rising  high  in  air,"  nor  oaken  panels  and  tapestries.  Further  still, 
it  is  doubtful  whether  Martha,  as  a  barefoot  child  about  the  streets 
of  Portsmouth,  ever  resolved  that  some  day  she  would  marry  the 

".     .     .     portly  person  with  three-cornered  hat, 
A  crimson  velvet  coat,  head  high  in  air, 
Gold-headed  cane,  and  nicely  powdered  hair 
And  diamond  buckles  sparkling  at  his  knees, 
Dignified,  stately,  florid,  much  at  ease." 

But  so  many  inaccurate  legends  have  been  edited  to  make  dull  facts 
that  it  is  a  real  pleasure  to  concede  the  Hall  to  Martha,  and  Martha 
to  her  husband. 

It  was  a  fine  house,  there  is  no  gainsaying  that.  Its  fifty  rooms 
must  have  pleased  her,  for  they  outranked  in  number  any  house  in 
the  whole  countryside.  There  were  queer  proportions  to  them,  and 
unexpected  turns,  one  went  up  two  steps  into  this  room,  and  down 
three  into  that.  A  secret  staircase  led  from  the  main  portion  of  the 

152 


THE      WENTWORTH      MANSION 

house  down  to  the  water,  which  may  have  been  built  so  that  the 
Governor  could  escape  an  angry  populace,  or  not,  as  you  prefer. 
There  was  a  big  pantry  to  warm  any  woman's  heart,  and  a  still  to 
make  rum  to  warm  any  man's.  It  is  a  temptation  to  visualize  the 
interior  as  filled  with  an  oriental  profusion  of  decorative  objects,  but 
the  probability  is  that  although  Benning  Wentworth  had  a  florid 
taste  for  the  creature  comforts,  and  the  ships  handy  to  import  them, 
he  was  still  a  native  of  New  Hampshire  and  restrained  in  his  notions 
of  decoration.  A  guess — and  it  must  be  a  guess,  for  no  record  exists 
— is  that  the  house  has  much  the  same  aspect  today,  with  good  por 
traits,  like  Copley's  of  Dorothy  Quincy,  good  Windsor  chairs,  good 
Sheraton,  good  china,  good  wall-paper — and  not  too  much  of  any 
ingredient  to  leave  you  surfeited.  In  the  council-room  we  know  that 
there  was  a  heavily  carved  mantel  which  was  strong  and  handsome, 
for  it  is  so  today;  that  the  guns  of  the  governor's  guard  were  racked 
there,  for  they  are  there  still;  that  there  were  paneled  doors  and  wains- 
coating  fit  for  a  room  in  which  to  entertain  Washington,  as  Martha 
Hilton  Wentworth  did  entertain  him  here  in  1789. 

In  1766  Benning  Wentworth  resigned  the  governorship.  He  had 
seen  the  Stamp  Act  committed  and  repealed,  and  although  he  had 
treated  with  political  daintiness  the  unpopular  measures  which  were 
breeding  trouble,  he  had  held  office  longer  than  any  other  provincial 
governor,  and  had  served  his  people  in  a  way  which  encouraged  their 
commercial  growth.  The  office  passed  to  his  nephew,  John  Went 
worth.  In  1770  Benning  Wentworth  died,  leaving  Martha  to  marry 
Colonel  Michael  Wentworth,  and  a  daughter,  Martha,  whom  Gover 
nor  John  Wentworth  married. 

Five  years  later  the  storm  broke  at  Lexington.  The  news  sped 
to  Portsmouth  and  every  man  armed  himself  and  began  drilling. 

153 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

Governor  John  was  powerless  to  resist  the  tendency.  He  tried  to 
pack  the  Assembly  with  favorable  delegates  from  new  towns,  and 
the  Assembly  angrily  threw  them  out.  When  one  of  them  insulted 
the  Assembly,  the  Assembly  chased  him  until,  breathless,  he  slammed 
the  three-inch  door  of  the  Wentworth  mansion  in  their  faces.  The 
crowd  brought  a  field-piece,  pointed  it  at  the  door  and  demanded  his 
surrender.  He  gave  himself  up,  and  the  Governor,  outraged  at  the 
affront,  fled  to  the  fort.  His  last  official  act  was  to  prorogue  the 
Assembly.  Royal  government  in  New  Hampshire  came  to  an  end, 
and  in  John  Wentworth  the  people  lost  a  leader  who  had  been  ener 
getic  in  the  extension  of  learning,  in  the  building  of  good  roads,  and 
in  the  development  of  agriculture.  He  lived  on  at  Little  Harbor 
until  Martha  Hilton  died  in  1805,  and  then  went  to  England,  and 
the  house  passed  out  of  the  family. 

Its  history  for  the  past  century  has  not  been  eventful.  A  critic 
who  has  traveled  over  certain  of  New  Hampshire's  roads  may  sug 
gest  that  Governor  John  Wentworth  was  the  last  man  who  improved 
them,  but  that  is  neither  here  nor  there,  and  such  comment  is  only 
likely  to  call  down  upon  the  scoffer's  head  one  of  the  ghosts  without 
which  no  American  colonial  mansion  is  properly  furnished.  Jack 
Coolidge,  as  a  boy,  used  to  lie  up  in  the  loft  and  moan  like  a  regula 
tion  ghost  when  disagreeable  tourists  asked  to  be  shown  about  the 
house,  and  any  one  of  them  will  tell  you  that  the  place  is  haunted. 
Infrequent  ships  still  pass  the  house  like  phantoms  from  the  great 
days,  outward  bound  in  lumber,  and  pass  in  with  coffee  and  molasses. 
But  no  rum,  and  if  Benning  Wentworth  knows,  he  is  where  he  cares 
not.  There  is  still  some  codfish — but  it  is  dry,  and  salty. 

When  Washington  came  to  Portsmouth  he  was  of  course  enter 
tained  and  fully  instructed  on  the  resources  of  the  section.  A  part 


THE      WENTWORTH      MANSION 

of  the  ceremonial  of  his  reception  was  a  fishing  expedition.  In  his 
diary  he  complains  of  his  luck.  A  band  was  blaring  in  his  honor, 
and  every  fish  in  that  portion  of  the  Atlantic  had  retreated  beyond 
the  Isles  of  Shoals.  A  rod  and  line  was  handed  to  the  general,  and 
instantly  he  felt  a  tug.  Up  came  twelve  pounds  of  glittering  cod. 
Huzzas  from  the  crowd,  congratulations  for  the  chief,  uproar  from 
the  band. 

A  canny  fisherman,  before  yielding  the  rod  to  Washington,  had 
quietly  attached  the  fish  to  the  hook.  Was  there  ever  nicer  hospi 
tality? 


THE  PRINGLE  HOUSE 


THE  PRINGLE  HOUSE 

Royal  governors  have  visited  here ;  invading  generals  have  made  the  house  headquarters  in  two  wars ;  it  was 
twice  besieged ;  a  famous  beauty  left  its  doors  and  was  lost  at  sea ;  and  even  Josiah  Quincy  was  impressed  by 
its  hospitality.  But  there  are  new  roses  every  springtime  on  the  garden  wall.  .  .  . 


THE  PRINGLE  HOUSE 

IF  tradition  has  any  influence  upon  its  own  children,  your  true 
Charlestonian  should  be  a  violently  proud  person,  who  votes 
with  a  flourish,  as  a  Signer  would  vote;  who  looks  aloft — not  at  the 
sun — but  at  the  spires  of  St.  Michael's  and  St.  Philip's,  and  see 
ing  them  in  their  proper  places  in  Charleston's  profile,  knows  that 
the  world  again  revolves;  who  makes  horrid  faces  regularly  in  the 
direction  of  Fort  Sumter;  who  cheers  "Huzza!"  at  the  lightest  men 
tion  of  General  Francis  Marion;  in  short,  who  conducts  himself  gen 
erally  in  an  extremely  historic  manner. 

He  has  none  of  these  gestures.  He  dines  at  mid-afternoon,  goes 
amiably  about  his  affairs,  is  aristocratic  to  a  degree  and  in  the  same 
degree  is  gracefully  hospitable.  In  the  center  of  one  of  our  country's 
most  fertile  areas  of  dramatic  action  he  is  not  theatrical.  It  bothers 
you,  for  example,  if  he  happens  to  be  a  Prioleau  and  you  are  passing 
the  Huguenot  church  which  a  Prioleau  founded  in  1685,  that  he  has 
no  appropriate  expression  of  Seventeenth  Century  piety. 

If  Charleston  really  knew  what  was  expected  of  her  in  dramatic 
ritual  she  would  do  all  those  things.  Happily  Charleston  does  not 
know,  or  she  might  exploit  and  become  odious.  Instead  she  watches 
the  cloth-of-gold  roses  climb  the  courtyard  wall  and  is  much  more  con 
cerned  with  the  forthcoming  blossoms  than  with  the  ancestor  who 
planted  the  roots.  She  has  a  back-drop  as  glorious  as  an  old  tapes 
try,  but  it  is  hung  where  it  belongs — back.  She  attends  St.  Michael's 
and  St.  Philip's  for  today's  devotions  and  tomorrow's  salvation,  which 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

are  the  richer  for  yesterday's  haunting  footsteps.  And  only  Charles 
ton  can  truly  appreciate — though  the  rest  of  the  nation  may  admire 
and  cherish — the  old  square  house  in  King  Street  whose  red-brick 
walls  and  shining  white  portico  are  framed  by  ancient  trees  at  the 
curbing;  the  house  Miles  Brewton  built;  the  house  Charleston  knows 
as  the  "Pringle  House." 

Miles  Brewton  was  not  primarily  a  soldier.  His  father  and 
his  grandfather  had  been  for  forty  years  custodians  of  gunpowder 
in  Charles  Town,  but  the  colony's  preliminary  fighting  had  mostly 
been  done  by  that  time.  When  the  combined  forces  of  the  Kings 
of  France  and  Spain  were  driven  out  of  the  harbor  forever  in  1706, 
the  colonists  settled  back  to  a  half-century  of  peaceful  commerce. 
The  powder  magazine  on  Cumberland  Street  was  not  often  called 
upon  to  repel  the  invader,  and  the  powder  receiver's  duties,  though 
honorable  service,  were  not  over-exacting. 

So  Miles  came  into  the  dual  inheritance  of  a  quiescent  military 
tradition  and  an  active  fortune.  Naturally  enough,  since  he  had 
just  married  Miss  Mary  Izard,  his  thoughts  turned  on  building  a 
house;  his  taste  suggested  a  beautiful  house;  his  wealth  permitted  a 
house  which  Josiah  Quincy  described  as  ' 'superb,  .  .  .  said  to  have 
cost  him  18,000  sterling." 

Josiah  Quincy,  though  a  Bostonian,  believed  in  seeing  America 
first.  He  had  a  most  illuminating  journey.  He  had  never  realized 
that  Charles  Town,  in  the  Carolinas,  was  the  richest  city  south  of 
Philadelphia,  nor  that  here  he  was  to  find  a  spirit  of  resentment  against 
British  injustice  as  acute  as  that  of  his  own  people.  'This  town," 
he  wrote,  "makes  a  beautiful  appearance  as  you  come  up  to  it  and 
in  many  respects  a  magnificent  one.  I  can  only  say  in  general  that 

in  grandeur,  splendor  of  building,  decorations,  equipages,  numbers, 

1 60 


THE      PRINGLE      HOUSE 


commerce,  shipping,  and  indeed  everything  it  far  surpasses  all  I  ever 
saw  or  ever  expect  to  see  in  America."  From  a  Quincy  of  Massa 
chusetts  this  was  the  perfect  tribute. 

What  prompted  it?  In  his  diary  of  March  8,  1773  he  writes: 
"Dined  with  a  large  company  at  Miles  Brewton's,  Esq.,  a  gentleman 
of  very  large  fortune.  ...  At  Mr.  Brewton's  sideboard  was  very 
magnificent  plate.  A  very  fine  bird  kept  familiarly  playing  about 
the  room  under  our  chairs  and  the  table,  picking  up  the  crumbs,  and 
perching  on  the  window  and  sideboard."  The  bird  was  evidently  the 
crowning  touch  to  a  panoply  of  culture  and  luxury  such  as  he  had 
scarcely  anticipated  among  the  outlanders.  You  may  picture  him,  if 
you  like,  rising  comfortably  fortified  with  good  cooking,  at  the  end  of 
a  whole  afternoon  at  the  five-yard  table;  identifying  with  shrewd  ap 
praisal  the  excellent  furniture  which  his  host  and  hostess  had  picked 
up  in  England  five  years  before;  running  a  furtive  proving  finger  over 
the  carved  woodwork  which  had  also  come  across  the  Atlantic;  know 
ing  that  the  portrait  of  Miles  Brewton  on  the  wall  was  good,  and 
knowing  that  another  reason  why  it  was  good  was  because  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  had  done  it.  Though  there  were  slaves  in  Boston  at  that 
time,  you  may  conjecture  that  he  tacitly  disapproved  of  the  sub 
stantial  slave  quarters  across  the  courtyard — for  he  was  the  ancestor 
of  a  brilliant  abolitionist.  But  for  the  architectural  excellence  of 
the  interior,  its  carved  woodwork,  and  its  furnishings,  he  could  have 
nothing  but  praise.  And  at  the  risk  of  invading  the  visitor's  privacy 
you  may  follow  him  to  the  King  Street  gate  as  he  departs,  and  you 
may  perhaps  catch  the  emphatic  wag  of  his  head,  and  hear  his  con 
clusive  whisper:  "These  people  know  how!  They  have  atmosphere!  lam 
amazed!"  He  carried  back  to  Boston  the  warm  friendship  of  Miles 

Brewton  and  the  firm  conviction  that  Charles  Town  could  be  relied  upon. 

161 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

t  — = 

Miles  Brewton  had  for  ten  years  been  a  member  of  the  Commons 
House  of  the  Colonial  legislature.  He  had  watched  the  smoulder 
ing  of  a  spirit  which  would  break  out  in  flame  the  next  spring,  had 
given  wise  counsel  to  the  hot-heads,  yielded  nothing  to  injustice  from 
London.  Then  Charles  Town  heard  the  shot  fired  round  the  world. 
The  Provincial  Congress  met,  voted  to  raise  three  regiments  and  a 
million  dollars.  Into  the  uproar  sailed  his  Majesty's  Ship  Scorpion, 
bearing  Lord  William  Campbell,  to  be  the  new  colonial  governor, 
apparently  for  no  special  qualification  except  that  he  had  married 
Sarah  Izard,  of  Charles  Town.  Miles  Brewton  made  his  wife's  cousin 
and  her  governor-husband  his  guests  at  once,  and  when  the  Provincial 
Congress  promptly  stuck  its  verbal  bayonets  under  the  uncomfort 
able  young  Campbell's  nose,  His  Lordship  stayed  up  half  the  night 
wondering  what  he  could  do,  and  then  called  Miles  Brewton  out  of 
bed  to  help  settle  the  question. 

A  Committee  of  Safety  presently  supplanted  the  Provincial  Con 
gress,  and  Brewton  became  a  member.  We  know  of  his  value  to  the 
colony  in  trying  to  preserve  equilibrium.  Of  what  his  service  in  war 
might  have  been  we  can  never  know.  Josiah  Quincy  had  been  urging 
upon  his  friend  the  courtesy  of  a  return  visit.  With  Mrs.  Brewton 
and  the  children  he  took  ship  to  Philadelphia — and  Miles  Brewton 
and  his  family  were  lost  at  sea.  Josiah  Quincy  lost  a  friend  and  the 
cause  a  level-headed  patriot. 

Although  its  builder  was  gone,  and  his  direct  line  wiped  out, 
the  Brewton  house  remained.  It  was  left  jointly  to  his  sisters,  Mrs. 
Charles  Pinckney  and  Mrs.  Jacob  Motte.  It  was  Mrs.  Motte's 
home  while  Parker  and  Clinton  hammered  at  the  city  gates  in  1776, 
and  it  requires  no  documentary  evidence  to  conceive  how  that  "very 
magnificent  plate"  on  the  Brewton  sideboard  shone  at  dinner  the 

^ 

162 


THE      PRINGLE      HOUSE 


night  of  August  second — the  night  when  the  battered  British  fleet 
had  sailed  away,  and  the  night  when  Captain  Barnard  Elliott  read 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  the  soldiery  and  the  cheering 
townsfolk. 

There  came  a  day,  however,  four  years  later  when  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  cut  off  the  peninsula  from  the  mainland,  and  forced  the  city 
to  surrender.  A  conqueror  likes  to  be  comfortable,  and  Sir  Henry 
and  his  staff  camped  down  upon  Mrs.  Motte's  thoroughly  comfort 
able  house.  You  will  find,  scratched  into  one  of  its  white  marble 
mantels,  a  crude  sketch  of  a  British  frigate,  and  a  portrait  of  the  con 
queror  himself,  done  by  a  staff-officer.  Mrs.  Motte,  at  the  com 
mander's  request,  presided  at  table,  but  the  lady  was  as  wise  as  she 
was  tactful — her  three  attractive  daughters  were  behind  barred  doors 
in  the  garret — a  knowing  precaution  against  the  notorious  tendencies 
of  Lord  Rawdon,  who  succeeded  Sir  Henry  Clinton.  Other  homes 
in  the  town  fared  less  well:  Mrs.  C.  C.  Pinckney  and  her  family  were 
turned  out  bodily,  and  the  families  upon  whom  were  quartered  cer 
tain  of  the  lesser  invaders  were  made  wretched  indeed. 

Charles  Town  endured  and  waited.  In  pleasant  weather  the 
enemy  staff  lounged  in  the  deep-walled  garden  which  reaches  back 
of  the  Motte  house  to  Legare  Street;  when  winter  forced  them  indoors 
there  were  gay  dinners  in  the  high-panelled  dining-room,  dinners 
attended  by  those  of  the  citizenry  who  had  "played  safe"  and  England 
to  win.  The  patriots  wore  brave  smiles  and  old  dresses.  If  you  had 
been  a  sentry  during  those  days  you  might  have  challenged  a  charm 
ing  young  woman  with  a  pass  through  the  lines  to  visit  her  plantation. 
If  you  had  been  a  dutiful  sentry  you  would  have  glanced  into  her  car 
riage,  to  make  sure  she  carried  no  contraband.  If  you  had  been  an 

impertinent  sentry  you  might  have  seen  that  she  wore  heavy  boots 

163 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

-but  if  she  had  smiled  at  you  you  would  not  have  been  impertinent. 
And  naturally  when  she  returned  through  the  lines  two  or  three  days 
later  and  smiled  graciously  upon  you  as  an  old  friend,  how  could  you 
know  that  those  boots  were  men's  boots,  and  that  they  were  now  in 
the  stirrups  of  some  cavalier  serving  under  Marion,  the  Swamp  Fox? 
Or  read  behind  her  smile  the  secret  that  Marion's  men  that  night 
would  ride  the  harder,  harass  the  British  patrols  outside  more  bitterly, 
make  foreign  tenure  of  the  city  less  and  less  comfortable?  That  was 
the  secret  of  the  women  of  Charles  Town. 

A  British  officer  caught  Colonel  Isaac  Hayne  after  a  brilliant 
capture  he  had  effected  within  five  miles  of  the  city.  They  brought 
him  in  and  condemned  him  to  death  as  a  spy,  which  he  was  not.  The 
drawing-room  of  the  Motte  house  saw  another  phase  of  Charles  Town's 
women:  heard  their  pleading  for  Hayne's  life;  saw  Rawdon  refuse. 
Then  imprisoned  Charles  Town  saw  Martyr  Hayne  hanged  and  bitter 
ness  crystallized  to  hate.  The  same  Mrs.  Motte  who  had  been  an 
unwilling  hostess  to  the  British  in  town  went  in  1780  to  her  planta 
tion  "Mount  Joseph,"  on  the  Congaree.  The  British  seized  and 
fortified  it  the  next  year  and  she  was  moved  to  a  nearby  farmhouse, 
so  that  Marion  and  "Light  Horse  Harry"  Lee  could  lay  siege  to  the 
property.  When  Lee  suggested  to  her  the  destruction  of  her  own 
home  by  fire-bearing  arrows,  she  agreed  heartily,  and  herself  brought 
forth  an  East-Indian  bow  and  arrows  of  great  range.  The  good  lady 
then  watched  the  marksmanship  of  Marion's  men  set  fire  to  her  own 
plantation  house,  applauded  its  surrender,  and  when  the  fire  was  out 
presided  over  captor  and  captive  at  her  own  table! 

A  watchman's  cry  put  an  end  to  the  poverty  and  distress  in 
which  the  besieged  city  found  itself  slowly  mired.  Cutting  through  the 

rain  it  brought  candle-light  to  life  in  every  house  as  the  news  spread: 

164 


THE      PRINGLE      HOUSE 


1  'Half-past- twelve  of  a  stormy  night  and  Cornwallis  has  surrendered!" 
It  meant  victory,  an  end  to  suffering,  reunited  families.  In  1782 
Moultrie  led  his  troops  into  the  city,  past  "the  balconies,  the  doors 
and  windows  crowded  with  the  patriotic  fair,  the  aged  citizens  and 
others  congratulating  us  on  our  return  home,  saying,  'God  bless  you, 
gentlemen!  You  are  welcome  home,  gentlemen!'  Both  citizens  and 
soldiers  shed  mutual  tears  of  joy." 

For  ten  years  the  Motte  house  followed  the  city's  returning  pros 
perity.  Of  the  three  girls  who  had  been  hidden  in  the  attic  during 
the  wretched  Rawdon's  incumbency,  one,  who  married  Thomas  Pinck- 
ney,  died  young;  the  second,  whose  first  husband  died,  married  Pinck- 
ney  and  lived  to  see  him  the  first  American  ambassador  to  England 
and  a  candidate  for  president.  The  third,  Mary  Brewton  Motte, 
married  William  Alston,  a  colonel  in  Marion's  Brigade. 

It  was  natural,  therefore,  when  President  Washington  journeyed 
to  South  Carolina  in  1791,  he  should  stop  at  Clifton,  Colonel  Alston's 
plantation,  and  marvel  at  the  luxurious  cultivation  of  the  fields  of 
young  rice.  If  Mary  Motte  Alston  had  her  mother's  character  and 
charm — as  she  probably  did — it  is  no  wonder  the  President  who  was 
also  a  good  farmer  told  her  the  plantation  " looked  like  fairyland." 
In  his  journal  he  wrote:  "Went  to  a  concert  where  were  400  ladies, 
the  number  and  appearance  of  which  exceeded  anything  I  had  ever 
seen."  And  later  this:  "Was  visited  about  two  o'clock  by  a  great 
number  of  most  respectable  ladies  in  Charleston,  the  first  honour 
of  the  kind  I  had  ever  experienced,  as  flattering  as  singular."  Nor 
can  we  omit  the  fact  that  Commodore  Gillon  solved  the  delicate  prob 
lem  of  where  to  seat  the  President  at  the  state  dinner  by  placing  him 
opposite  the  loveliest  lady  in  Charleston,  and  next  to  the  wittiest. 

In  1791  Colonel  Alston  bought  the  Motte  house.     As  the  Alston 

165 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

house  it  presided  over  the  rise  of  an  Alston  to  the  governorship  of  the 
state.  Its  gate  swung  wide  at  the  arrival  in  Charleston  of  Joseph  Als 
ton's  second  wife,  Theodosia  Burr.  Theodosia  sailed  for  New  York  in 
1813  in  the  swift  privateer,  Patriot,  to  join  her  lonely  father  Aaron. 
Four  weeks  later  Joseph  Alston  sat  down  at  a  French  secretary  in  the 
drawing-room  and  wrote  Burr,  "I  have  in  vain  endeavored  to  build 
upon  the  hope  of  long  passage.  Thirty  days  are  decisive.  My  wife  is 
either  captured  or  lost.  What  a  destiny  is  mine!"  The  ship  was 
never  heard  of  again.  Mrs.  St.  Julien  Ravenel  in  her  excellent  volume, 
' 'Charleston,  the  Place  and  Its  People,"  tells  of  the  death-bed  con 
fession  of  an  old  sailor  thirty  years  later,  who  had  been  one  of  a  crew 
of  pirates  who  had  captured  the  ship  and  made  the  passengers  walk 
the  plank,  and  some  color  is  given  to  this  solution  by  an  anonymous 
note  found  in  a  volume  of  Burr's  letters,  saying  "Some  account 
appeared  in  the  New  Orleans  papers  about  1848  of  the  deposition  of 
a  coloured  woman — 'in  relation  to  the  death  of  Mrs.  Alston  occasioned 
by  Pirates/" 

The  eldest  daughter  of  the  Alston  house,  born  to  the  purple, 
justified  her  claim  to  it  by  marrying  Robert  Y.  Hayne,  some  time 
Governor  of  South  Carolina,  United  States  Senator,  and  proprietor 
of  the  loser's  share  of  a  magnificent  debate  with  Daniel  Webster. 
That  rare  old  gentleman,  William  Alston,  lived  until  1839.  He  was 
a  practical  planter  who  believed  "that  in  the  management  of  slaves 
the  true  interests  of  the  planter  were  in  exact  accordance  with  the 
dictates  of  an  enlightened  humanity."  He  loved  horses,  maintained 
a  good  stable  on  the  King  Street  place,  and  raced  them  in  lively  compe 
tition;  this  leads  Mr.  Huger  Smith,  in  his  neighborly  story  of  the  Als 
ton  house,  to  "wonder  whether  Washington's  well  known  interest  in 

such  things  led  to  the  presence,  at  Colonel  Alston's  plantation  in  1799, 

166 


THE      PRINGLE      HOUSE 


of  Great  Plenipo,  sired  'by  Royal  Gift,  a  Jack  Ass  presented  to  the 
late  President  Washington  by  the  King  of  Spain.' — Georgetown  Gazette, 
April  17,  1799  "  Certain  it  is  that  he  owned  Betsy  Baker,  who 
defeated  Colonel  William  Washington's  Rosetta  in  a  stirring  race, 
and  Gallattin,  and  Alborae — famous  turf  names  all. 

His  children  made  him  happy,  and  he  endeared  himself  to  an 
army  of  friends,  not  the  least  of  whom  was  Thomas  Jefferson.  It  was 
Jefferson,  the  founder  of  the  political  party  which  has  since  committed 
prohibition,  who  wrote  Colonel  Alston  in  1818: 

"I  have  therefore  made  up  a  box  of  a  couple  of  doz.  bottles  among  which  you 
will  find  samples  of  the  wines  of  White  Hermitage,  Ledanon,  Rousillon  (of 
Riveralto).  Bergasse,  claret,  all  of  France  and  of  Nice,  and  Montepulciano,  of 
Italy." 

The  visitor  who  penetrates  to  that  cellar  today  will  find  it  empty. 
But  on  the  drawing-room  walls  he  will  find  another  letter  from  Jef 
ferson — as  he  will  find  one  from  George  Washington,  both  addressed 
to  John  Julius  Pringle,  and  asking  him  to  be  attorney-general  of  the 
United  States.  Those  letters  hang  there  because  John  Julius  Pringle,  a 
great  lawyer,  had  a  son,  William  Bull  Pringle,  and  because  fate  married 
him  to  Mary  Motte  Alston,  and  because  she  inherited  the  house — and 
the  letter — from  the  fine  old  Colonel  in  1839.  His  brother,  Robert 
Pringle,  was  in  Paris  when  the  royal  family  abdicated,  and  had  the 
opportunity  to  buy  the  chairs  from  Louis  Philippe's  palace  which  are 
such  an  ornament  to  the  house  today.  Those  letters  from  two  presi 
dents  of  the  United  States  were  cherished  possessions  of  the  family 
when  another  Robert  Pringle  was  killed  at  Battery  Wagner  on  Morris 
Island  in  the  defense  of  his  city  against  the  United  States.  The  tear 
drops  of  the  crystal  chandelier  in  that  same  drawing-room  tinkled 

at  the  shock  of  two  hundred  and  eighty  days'  firing  upon  Fort  Sumter, 

167 


FAMOUS      COLONIAL      HOUSES 

while  the  harassed  family  lived  through  a  bitter  repetition  of  the  siege 
of  eighty-odd  years  before,  and  when  the  Federal  troops  occupied  the 
city  in  1865  history  repeated  itself  as  they  made  headquarters  in  the 
Pringle  house.  Fifty  thousand  suns  have  not  faded  the  Indian  dyes 
in  the  silk  damask  curtains  Miles  Brewton  imported  for  his  new  house, 
nor  have  the  sea-fogs  dulled  the  French  secretary  that  was  Rebecca 
Motte's.  Her  high-boy  is  there  today,  so  is  a  graceful  and  inviting 
old  sofa.  Time  apparently  cannot  affect  them — except  as  it  makes 
these  possessions  infinitely  more  precious  to  the  present  gracious  owners, 
Miss  Susan  Pringle  Frost  and  her  sisters.  A  seven-yard  table  cloth, 
for  example,  would  be  an  exploit  in  linen  even  if  it  were  dated  1921; 
dated,  in  scarlet  cross-stitch,  "Alston,  1797,'*  Miss  Frost's  seven- 
yard  table  cloth  is  beyond  price. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  when,  in  1918,  there  were  rumors  of  an 
enemy  submarine  base  in  the  West  Indies,  and  the  possibility  of  raids 
upon  Charleston  seemed  more  than  mere  fancy,  the  Spirit  of  the  House 
smiled,  and  whispered:  "I  recollect  Miles  Brewton's  father  telling 
of  Blackbeard,  the  pirate.  He  was  going  to  raid  Charles  Town,  but 
thought  better  of  it.  Then  Stede  Bonnet — we  caught  him.  There 
have  been  a  lot  of  them,  trouble-makers  of  one  kind  and  another. 
Admiral  Cervera  and  the  Spanish  had  some  such  notion.  Submarines? 
M-m-m,  perhaps.  Who  knows?  I'm  going  to  take  a  little  nap  now, 
but  if  you  want  me,  Charleston,  let  me  know.  I'll  be  about  anyway 
when  they  commence  to  shell  the  town." 


168' 


APPENDIX 


THOSE  who  find  in  the  stories  of  Mount  Vernon  and  The  Quincy 
Homestead  a  stimulus  for  the  preservation  of  other  famous 
American  residences  will  naturally  inquire  into  the  successful  methods 
of  the  organizations  of  patriotic  women  who  now  carry  on  that  work 
in  a  manner  so  perfectly  suited  to  the  charge. 

To  answer  those  inquiries,  and  more  particularly  to  record  the 
identity  of  those  who  are  now  "carrying  on,"  there  follows  a  list  of 
the  current  officers  of  the  Mount  Vernon  Ladies'  Association  of  the 

Union:  Regent 

Miss  Harriet  Clayton  Comegys 

On  the  Green,  Dover,  Delaware 

Hon.  Vice-Regent 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  B.  A.  Rathbone          Michigan 


Vice-Regents 
Miss  Alice  M,  Longfellow 
Mrs.  Charles  Custis  Harrison 
Mrs.  Thomas  S.  Maxey 
Mrs.  Robert  D.  Johnston 
Mrs.  Eugene  Van  Rensselaer 
Mrs.  John  Julius  Pringle 
Mrs.  William  F.  Barret 
Mrs.  Henry  W.  Rogers 
Miss  Mary  F.  Failing 
Mrs.  Eliza  F.  Leary 

Mrs.  J.  Carter  Brown 

169 


Massachusetts 

Pennsylvania 

Texas 

Alabama 

West  Virginia 

South  Carolina 

Kentucky 

Maryland 

Oregon 

Washington 

Rhode  Island 


APPENDIX 


Vice-Regents 

Mrs.  James  Gore  King  Richards 
Miss  Mary  Evarts 
Mrs.  Antoine  Lentilhon  Foster 
Miss  Annie  Ragan  King 
Miss  Jane  A.  Riggs 
Mrs.  Horace  Mann  Towner 
Mrs.  Thomas  P.  Denham 
Miss  Harriet  L.  Huntress 
Mrs.  Charles  Eliot  Furness 
Mrs.  Benjamin  D.  Walcott 
Mrs.  Lucien  M.  Hanks 
Miss  Annie  Burr  Jennings 
Mrs.  Willard  Hall  Bradford 
Mrs.  Charles  Nagel 
Mrs.  George  A.  Carpenter 
Miss  Mary  Govan  Billups 
Mrs.  John  V.  Abrahams 
Mrs.  Margaret  Busbee  Shipp 
Mrs.  Horton  Pope 
Mrs.  Charles  J.  Livingood 
Mrs.  Randolph  Anderson 
Mrs.  Celsus  Price  Perrie 
Mrs.  Horace  Van  Denenter 


Maine 

Vermont 

Delaware 

Louisiana 

District  of  Columbia 

Iowa 

Florida 

New  Hampshire 

Minnesota 

Indiana 

Wisconsin 

Connecticut 

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Mrs.  Charles  S.  Wheeler 

The  restoration  and  custody  of  The  Quincy  Homestead  is  in  the 
hands  of  a  committee  of  the  Massachusetts  Society  of  Colonial  Dames. 
The  promoting  and  sustaining  figure  in  the  work  is  the  present  chief 

executive  of  the  Society,  Mrs.  Barrett  Wendell,  of  Boston. 

170 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

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Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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(B9311slO)476                                      University  of  California 
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